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Suzanne Nanyonge Translation and Journalism @ Buea
city Buea, Cameroon
343
1460
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In Education • 2 min read • Oct 25, 2023 21:11p.m.
Why Professional Translation is Necessary

Going by statistics, 55 countries in the world are officially bilingual, including Cameroon. Bilingualism simply means an ability to speak and write two languages. The two official languages in Cameroon are English and French. However, bilingualism is not enough for one to be considered a translator, if not, there wouldn’t be a need to create schools were people go through training and obtain certificates in order to become translators. This thought is backed by solid evidence. On several occasions, people have stumbled on posters, billboards, books or even audio tracks which contain poorly translated information. A recent example which toured most social media platforms is this picture which said, “Bureau de dépenses" in French and it was translated as “Expensive Office" in English. Such a translation was identified at a public office. One can imagine the reactions from the public in general, talk less of translators in particular. This is just one among the several examples of documents meant for public consumption that have been mistranslated. Translation goes beyond words; it has to do with meaning in context. A word can bear different meanings depending on the way it is used in a sentence. In that rough example, the term “expensive” was wrongly used, hence the message has not gone through. Professional translators are needed to do this job, and they ought to be paid for that, because they have gone through formal training in order to alleviate such poor output. A translator is definitely bilingual, but a bilingual person is not necessarily a translator. Hence, people and institutions need to bear this mind when looking for who to “translate" their texts. Every year, a batch of professional translators graduate from the Advanced School of Translators and Interpreters (ASTI) in Buea, as well as the Higher Institute of Translation, Interpretation and Communication (ISTIC) in Yaounde and Douala, among others. This is due to the high demand for seasoned experts to change the narrative of language barriers. If not, what can you suggest as appropriate translation for that aforementioned example? Try your hand at it in the comment section.

Mwambo Kate

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