How Many Languages Do Professional Translators Speak?

A question some professional translators may hear sometimes is, “How many languages do you speak?” Implicit in the question can be the mistaken belief that the more languages a translator speaks, the more linguistically gifted they are, and the better their translation skills are.

In reality most professional translators work in a single language combination (English-Spanish or English-Russian for example). Additionally they work in only one direction, meaning a translator may work on projects going from English-to-Spanish, but not Spanish-to-English. Typically translators will be native speaking in the target language, the language translating into.

It makes perfect sense that professional translators will work in a single direction. While translators working in the English-Spanish combination are bilingual in both languages, their written language skills in one language will be strongest in their native language. By definition one’s native language is the language that a person acquires in earliest childhood.

Modern translation clients require and pay for the services of specialists rather than generalists. Translators are specialists not only in the language combination they work in, but also in the subject matter they work in (e.g., medical, legal, technical, et. al.). For Affinity Translation, a big part of our job is to ensure that just the right specialized translator resources are assigned to each project.