Translation A Must-Have Guide

Along with excellent language and writing skills, it is important to look for
these qualities:
• The ability to translate documents into “plain language,” so that people of
many literacy levels – even those with limited literacy skills – can read and
understand the information.
“Plain language writing” is the proper and correct usage of the language in
a style that most readers can understand. Plain language writing employs
simple sentence structure and avoids slang, colloquialisms, and overly
sophisticated vocabulary. It uses common words that most readers – even
those with limited literacy skills – know.
Plain language skills allow the translator to adapt the original information
in a way that respects the culture and educational levels of the readers
while making sure the meaning of the translation stays true to the source
document. To do this properly, the translator should have experience in
writing for different levels of literacy and be attuned to new immigrants
and others with low to medium levels of reading proficiency. 1
• A willingness to ask questions and discuss translation issues in order to
clarify anything about the source document or the project itself that may
be unclear.
• A willingness to speak candidly and accept honest feedback from you, the
client. Open and honest communication with the translator may help resolve
the occasional disagreements that may arise about translation issues.
1 It is also helpful if translators have professional experience in a nonlinguistic field. For example, some of the best
translators of medical documents are people who were in the health care field, and some of the best translators
of technical documents were formerly engineers. See translationjournal.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-to-predicttranslation-performance.html.
6 | WHAT IS A TRANSLATOR