>Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche, authors of the 2012 book Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World, discuss their love for language and how they’ve gotten lost (and found again) in the world of translation.
by Mark Miller
Online Editor of Collide
Who they are
Formerly a Fulbright scholar in Ecuador, Nataly Kelly is a certified Spanish-English court interpreter and the vice president of market development at Smartling, a cloud-based translation management company.
Jost Zetzsche obtained his Ph.D. in Chinese history and linguistics at the University of Hamburg and is an accredited English-to-German translator, a consultant and writer in the realm of localization and translation and a co-founder of the International Writers’ Group in Oregon.
Working in two languages
Kelly has worked in the $33-billion “translation industry” for 17 years. She’s served as a telephone interpreter, a position that involves situations as diverse as calls from hospitals, 911 dispatchers and coupon catalogues. Kelly said she never knew what the next call would bring.
Kelly compared the claim that “anybody who knows two languages can be a translator” with the statement “anybody who can write can be a writer.” Just as most people can play a little tune on the piano, most bilingual individuals can perform basic translations. “[But] professionals are playing a concerto,” Kelly said, noting the 10-percent passing rate to become a professional translator.
“We simply can’t communicate without translation,” Kelly said. Even on a domestic scale in the U.S., “One out of five speaks another language at home.” With North Korea as the only monolingual nation in the world, translation is essential for practically all societies—whether that means translation of food packaging in the supermarket, security signs in an international airport or the proceedings of a trial at court. Translation reaches everywhere. “It’s like air,” Kelly said.
Zetzsche mostly translates software programs in his current job. In light of his love for variety, he spends roughly two-thirds of his time translating, while he consults companies and writes about translation technology during the remainder. Zetzsche said 95 percent of his work in translation encompasses English and German texts. Despite his proficiency in Chinese, he said he doesn’t translate much from that tongue because of a “huge number of competitors” who vie for jobs in Chinese translation and often work for less money. “So it’s entirely an economical decision.”
Why language?
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Zetzsche grew up speaking German, learning English early on, and studied Latin starting in seventh grade. “When I was 23, I decided to study Chinese at a university…I kind of expected to drop it after a year or two, but I had a wonderful teacher.” Zetzsche stuck with his studies and eventually lived in China for a few years.
“To judge whether a language is easy or hard to learn, it depends which language you’re starting from,” Zetzsche said. In the case of Chinese, which may seem significantly “harder” to English or German speakers, “In reality it isn’t hard; it’s just different.” Zetzsche explained the difference as a distinct context for each of the languages. English, German and Chinese all work out of their own cultural contexts.
“The way I finally found my way into Chinese was when I fell in love with the written language,” Zetzsche said. “In the process of learning something else, you always learn something about yourself.” Zetzsche said when people read English, they’re not looking at all of the individual letters but rather at the “pictures,” or the word units as a whole. The idea of “pictures” explains why someone quickly scanning over a page can detect a misspelled word. “You look at the pictures. The Chinese read the same way.”
Kelly got lost in her love for languages at an early age. “My interest for languages probably came from my piano teacher,” Kelly said. In the rural setting of Mason City, Ill., Kelly began to take lessons from a Korean instructor when she was four years old. Kelly’s fascination with languages arose when her voice lessons began; she learned to sing works in Italian, German and French. With English translations accompanying the music, Kelly said she mostly worked on the pronunciation of the words rather than their meaning. “Being a musician really helps as an interpreter,” Kelly said. “You hear the nonverbals…the emotions, like hesitation or doubt.”
Kelly started learning Spanish at the age of 12 and then developed a desire to learn “every possible language” she could. Now bilingual in Spanish, she has familiarized herself with tens of thousands of words to work skillfully as an interpreter. Kelly also formally studied French, Italian, German, Arabic and Japanese in college and is currently working on Irish Gaelic along with her husband. She added that she’s studied many other languages on an informal basis.
Why language? Why not?
Kelly said language education in the U.S. doesn’t have the greatest track record, at least in comparison to programs in Switzerland and other European countries. Although many people who take a language in college typically don’t use it much later in life, Kelly said study-abroad programs open up opportunities to develop a deep understanding of a language. “That really gives [students] an edge,” Kelly said. “It really opens up their world view.” Kelly advises language learners to “pick whatever language they’re fascinated by” because they will then have access to better job opportunities.
Zetzsche said he’s noticed a greater recognition of the importance of languages in schools. “I think there’s an increased attempt to have foreign languages in the classroom…[Yet] there still needs to be a lot done to prepare kids for foreign languages.” Although America has English as its dominant language, Zetzsche said it’s “by no means a monolingual country.” In areas in the south, like parts of L.A., Spanish can rival—or even supersede—the extent of English. And that is only one (granted, large) example of the nearly 400 languages spoken every day within America’s borders.
Where language leads
Zetzsche said the “translation industry” (he’s wary of using that phrase) consists of many branches that can actually stand on their own. Whether in the legal, medical or technical sphere of translation, each translator’s needs vary greatly. From a specialized level of translation like software programming to the “industry” as a whole, Zetzsche foresees a bright future for language enthusiasts: “Translation is going to be a field with many, many opportunities” in which technology will play an increasingly larger role.
Zetzsche sees machine translation (MT) as a hot topic right now—not only “on the mind of the public” (with the popularity of Google Translate) but for translators as well. Although he deems MT “a great opportunity for translators,” Zetzsche said much time would have to pass before it would replace human translation. Zetzsche sees the advantage in working with MT, especially as translators post-edit the machine-translated text, which usually turns out good enough to quicken the translation process. Even so, Zetzsche personally doesn’t use MT, considering the unique challenges in creating a translation that flows well from English into German.
“The [translation] market has been growing every year, even during the recession,” Kelly said. “Not just with language-related jobs, but also on the business end.” Kelly agrees with Zetzsche that technology will end up even more central to translation in the days to come, adding that machine translation tools will expand their use and functionality.
“Translation is really fun,” Kelly said. It can play a key role in any field of interest or vocation. “Whether you’re interested in baseball or video games, you can make language a part of it.”