What One Must Know Before Becoming a French Translator

Learning another language will help you in understanding another culture, understanding better your own language, and be more marketable for employers. The more language you learn the easier it will become. The French language is a beautiful roman language that came from the Latin, and both have many common rules. It will take someone years to learn how to master it fully but if you are not a native it will have its rewards...

Besides the fact that French is the second language learned after English and is spoken all over the world, many people in France and Canada want to preserve their language and do not want any foreign words, especially English on governmental documents or internet sites. Each field has its own technical language and your translator must know the terms pertinent to your industry.

In the computer world, the words we take for granted such as "e-mail, data, and scroll down" are not allowed in French. They have their own translations: courier électronique, données et feuilleter. In the financial world, "a dealer" is "une maison de courtage", "net asset value" is "la valeur liquidative" in the legal world, this is even trickier "Avocat in French" can have 7 different meanings in English and the word "advocate" does not mean "Avocat" this is what we call a false friend.

On the top of knowing a vocabulary specific to a subject, a good translator must understand the uniqueness of the French language. The following are some grammatical facts that one must know before translating any document.

Grammatical facts

French has many silent letters (letters that cannot be heard when pronounced) that will show a difference between the spoken words and the written ones.

French unlike English as a formal and an informal way of communicating with people. If the French are meeting a friend, they will address each other by using the informal form "Tu" and for a business meeting, they will switch to the formal form "Vous". This is to show respect. They are switching from singular to plural even if there is only one person.

French has 4 different type of accent: accent aigu , accent grave, accent circonflexe, accent tréma and one mark called la cédille (cedilla, only found with the letter 'c'). Each translator must know which accent to choose, why and where to place it as it can change the whole meaning of a sentence.

French gives a gender to everything so an object is either masculine or feminine, so an adjective and a past participle also have a gender.

When it comes to French translations, a good translator must know that there are two types of French: one called standard French which is understood around the world and a French dialects that are used in a specific country or for certain types of customers. A lot of times, a translator is required to translate a document for example into French Canadian. In this case, the translator must know French perfectly as well as the Canadian dialect.

Becoming a translator is very competitive but rewarding. If you want to become a translator, you need more than just being fluent in multiple languages. You might want to specialize yourself in an industry like the medical, legal, financial, marketing field to give you more opportunity and spend some times in the country to learn the culture, the customs and the beauty of the language.

About the Author:

M. Blanc has 20 years of experience as a writer and translator, she is the owner of Hi-DefinitionStudios. She partners with Tectrad, a professional translation services agency. Find out why since 1989, a large number of international institutions and large corporations have trusted Tectrad with the translation of their English corporate communications to French.