For ages astute merchants have known it. Speak your customer’s language. Because you want to be part of their world. Because you want to build bridges based on affinity and mutual understanding. Because you want to share their mindset, their background, their system of beliefs. Only then can you truly reach them. Only then, with the right words, can you begin to move them.
Or imagine you’re signing a major deal. One preposition in a legal agreement, one equivocal word can make all the difference. It is only clarity that can generate that reassuring feeling of security. This is the beauty and the challenge of translation. And that is the gratification we translators get out of it. Hard work for a polished product that delivers.
Translators and translation clients may have diverging interests in many respects. But we do have one crucial thing in common. Successful intercultural communication is our common goal.
Andreea Sepi (BBA) – Professional Translator & Interpreter, andreeasepi@yahoo.com, +49-(0)163-2627019.
