Which translator?

Roberto Arcangeli
FLAMINIA AB
P.O .Box 5027 • SE-831 05 Östersund • Sweden
tel +46 63 181 28 • fax +46 63 514 913
email roberto@arcangeli.net

	On the page "WHY A PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATOR?" we have seen that entrusting your translations to a professional in the trade is always good business! But at this point another question arises: "how to select one?"

How to find and select a translator		Where can you find a list of candidates? The best way is to turn to the professional translators associations in your own country. These are prominent, well-known organizations which accept as members only those candidates who can truly demonstrate that they are qualified, experienced and professional. Naturally these associations cannot guarantee that all of their members are translation experts, but they have already completed a very important first step of the selection process on behalf of the client. The client, however, must continue the selection process on his own, until he finds a suitable translator. Some of the choices seem obvious, for example, those dictated by the type of translation (technical or literary) and by the language (source and target). Already these two criteria greatly restrict the circle of possible candidates. This is where the most interesting part of the "hunt for a translator" begins, however. It is advisable to follow these rules... :

		1)	1) Always choose a native speaker! (one who lives abroad, however, or who lives in his own country but has spent frequent periods abroad, so that he has a good familiarity with both the source language and the target language).

		2)	2) Give preference to those who specialize in a single linguistic combination. As skilled as a translator might be, he cannot offer the highest quality if he claims to translate from and into many languages.

		3)	Carefully evaluate the professional's resume, areas of specialization, and technical resources and equipment. Just as almost no professional can guarantee the highest quality of work by translating into languages that are not his own, neither can he do so if he does not have in-depth knowledge of the subjects in which he works, along with the technical resources and equipment required to do the job well. (For Roberto Arcangeli's areas of specialization, see the page my areas of specialization and for equipment and resources, see the page technical resources and equipment)..

Knowledge is power			A hundred years ago translations were written with a pen, then came the typewriter, and finally the computer. But in today's world not even a computer and a word processing program are enough to guarantee professionalism to the client. In the field of technical translation, computer assisted translation programs are now commonly used, both because they facilitate the translator's work by making him more productive, and because they improve the translation by giving it greater terminological consistency.A good translator must also know how to get around in the area of graphic arts, and be able to work directly on text layout, using special programs available on the market. This capability saves the client money, since he is not obliged to turn to one professional for translation and to another for pagination and layout. For Roberto Arcangeli's software resources, see the page technical resources and equipment.

In a word, Roberto Arcangeli			Those who agree with the above criteria and want to obtain quality technical translations from English and Swedish to Italian, can turn to me with confidence. I'm a professional translator, whose native language is Italian, who translates only into Italian and only in specific subjects. For areas of specialization, see the page my areas of specialization. .I hold special authorization from the Swedish government for the translation of legal texts into Italian (auktoriserad translator), and similar authorization for English is pending. You may request an estimate by using the request form or by sending a message to: roberto@arcangeli.net