Today, 30th September is the feast of St. Jerome, a Bible translator, who is considered the patron saint of translators. He translated most of the Bible from Greek manuscripts into Latin. Therefore, it is also celebrated as an International Translation Day since 2017 to show solidarity of the worldwide translation community in an effort to promote the translation profession in different countries. Even though it is the era of Google Translate, this profession is becoming increasingly important in the era of progressing globalization.
The work of language professional plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development and strengthening world peace and security. It is important to understand what other people are trying to say, oftentimes, the context lies between the words, and Google Translate is not able enough to distinguish between small intricacies of different languages. Or languages that have a very complicated grammar structure, so different to English language, for example, Finno-Ugric languages that are built on inflections instead of prepositions and articles. Miscommunication and misunderstanding have brought so many problems into our lives. Truly, even when people are speaking the same language, often it is easy to misunderstand the other.
I am an English graduate whose mother tongue is Estonian. While I do not have a lot of professional experience in the field of translations, it is something I enjoy doing and hope to one day have a career in. Words, expressions and different grammar structures of languages are very interesting and show how differently they impact the minds of different language speakers. Estonian is a fairly small language and while most people can speak English well, the need for Estonian interpretation might grow in order to preserve the language.
I invite everyone to be more mindful of their own language, of the ways they express themselves, which lingo they use, and to pay attention to various ways in which the different words and languages change the way we see the objects, the ideas and the world.
Jaanika Malla
The work of language professional plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development and strengthening world peace and security. It is important to understand what other people are trying to say, oftentimes, the context lies between the words, and Google Translate is not able enough to distinguish between small intricacies of different languages. Or languages that have a very complicated grammar structure, so different to English language, for example, Finno-Ugric languages that are built on inflections instead of prepositions and articles. Miscommunication and misunderstanding have brought so many problems into our lives. Truly, even when people are speaking the same language, often it is easy to misunderstand the other.
I am an English graduate whose mother tongue is Estonian. While I do not have a lot of professional experience in the field of translations, it is something I enjoy doing and hope to one day have a career in. Words, expressions and different grammar structures of languages are very interesting and show how differently they impact the minds of different language speakers. Estonian is a fairly small language and while most people can speak English well, the need for Estonian interpretation might grow in order to preserve the language.
I invite everyone to be more mindful of their own language, of the ways they express themselves, which lingo they use, and to pay attention to various ways in which the different words and languages change the way we see the objects, the ideas and the world.
Jaanika Malla
