When I came in contact with translation for the first time, I thought it’s very sacred and great and simply took for granted that it was a difficult task. So I translated the material with awe, felt anxiety and was always afraid that I could not fulfill the task in time.
During the initial stage of my translation experience, the moment I got the materials to be translated from the project manager, I started to translate them without quickly reading through or partially reading the source texts right away. The result was that I began to master their main ideas or what the source texts intended to tell only after translation of a large part of them.
After being in this field for some periods, I found these are very bad habits. The reasons are as follows:
The awe and anxiety would influence the normal level of play. The translator should focus on the source text during translation to avoid unnecessary faults or carelessness. When the translator deal with the text with awe, he/she would think the text is very difficult or important all the time, then he/she may comprehend the text more complex or imply that he/she cannot do it well.
So you can understand what the results may be. If the translator deals with the text with anxiety, he/she may misunderstand the text or be mistaken about such details as figures and similar words as his/her mind is not clear due to the anxious mood.
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If the translator immediately begins to translate the materials without quickly reading through or partially reading them when he/she receives them from the project manager, he/she may loss the opportunity of grasping the main ideas or what kinds of the materials are correctly.
On the contrary, if the translator performs the warm-up activities, he/she can narrow the search scope and have a clear mind about the materials during the follow-on work. Therefore, the translation process may become more concentrated and better quality may be maintained in this way.
Therefore, in order to deliver high-quality translation services, maintaining the normal state of mind during translation and performing good warm-up activities are two important aspects.