In this video, Ramesh Aravind tells us that competition with others is useless because there will always be someone who is better or worse than us in something. If we really want to improve, the only person we should compete with is ourselves: we should never stop learning until we become irreplaceable and people will pay for our skills. In the meantime, in order to achieve success and earn money, we should do a job that adds value to other people’s lives, making their existence better or easier in some way.
What happens if we apply Ramesh Aravind’s advice on our career as a translator? Should translators be competitive? What is the value that translators add to society?
Collaboration among translators
As a translator, I am always told that I will face competition, that there will always be professionals who can do the job better than me or who are cheaper than me, that I should especially be careful of the information I share with translators who work with the same language pairs as me.
When I hear these statements I judge them as unprofessional and false. We can actually learn from other translators while helping each other. In fact, translators can work together as a team following a wolf pack strategy: the newest translators can learn from the most experienced ones, whereas the most experienced translators can take a fresh perspective and energy from the newest ones. This is true even among translators who have the same degree of experience because our differences allow us to be strong and weak in opposite fields.
The value of translators
Translators are the bridges of our society. The world we know would not even exist without them. They make different cultures and languages communicate with each other, they allow people to understand each other. They connect the global economy as well as they spread ideas and information. They are cultural mediators. Hence, translating is an honorable job that adds value to other people’s lives. Corporations can benefit from them to become powerful because they allow them to reach people all over the world, making the consumers understand what the product is, but also adapting ads to their culture so that they can relate to that product. Nations can benefit from them because they allow them to dialogue with other nations about laws, negotiations, and the market. Privates can benefit from them because they can translate their medical records, their official papers, as well as let them enjoy a book, a film, an article that people could have not understood in the original language.
Conclusion
If we want to be successful translators, we should stop considering other translators as enemies. On the opposite, we should start considering them as our way to learn and improve: let’s get inspired by our colleagues, let’s ask them for advice or for mentoring. We should also focus on the value of our job, and start imagining how we can improve the world with our services. We should start asking ourselves, “Why do I want to be a translator? Is that because I want to promote peace? Or maybe I want to help companies to achieve success? Or do I want to spread knowledge?”
Once we answer our question, we can start working and improving in that direction. We can learn what it takes to be a great translator in the field we are interested in, network with colleagues, find our clients, and make ourselves irreplaceable. We should remember that it is never too late. We can start changing now, we can start improving now, because “every day can be the first day of the rest of our lives”.
