Do unicorns in the world of translation truly exist? Of course they exist! Just as they exist in all other fields and industries – tile laying, banking, insurance, medicine, and elsewhere. Just think of the last insurance contract you got – did you really understand everything you read? Probably not as you do not deal with insurance and insurance terms every day.

Tighten the belt on your trousers so they stay in place, get your lasso and let's go hunting – for some unicorns!

UNICORN #1:
Translators translate into a foreign language and into their mother tongue

False. Many translators translate exclusively from a foreign language into their native language because it comes more natural to them. Translators who are equally proficient in both their mother tongue and a foreign language are very rare. They usually grew up in an environment where both languages were used equally (for example with parents from different countries) or lived in an environment where the target language is spoken for many years. We are exposed to our mother tongue all our lives so it comes natural to us and we are more proficient in that language than in any other language we have learned, studied, or used regularly.

UNICORN #2:
For a basic translation, it suffices for someone to speak the target language well

False. If someone speaks the target language well, it is of course great for them as they will be able to understand a foreign language without an official translation needed. This person probably does not know all the grammatical, spelling, stylistic, and other linguistic rules that apply in the target language and are constantly changing. The world of translation works in the same way as everything else – you can, of course, entrust a non-expert with an expert assignment if you wish, but don’t be surprised about the result. It might surprise you even more than an actual pink unicorn in your backyard! 

UNICORN #3:
If a translator is really good, no proofreading is needed

False. Translation and proofreading are separate procedures and each impacts the final result in its own way. Regardless of the expertise and long-term experience of a translator, proofreading is crucial if you want a top-notch translation. Two pairs of eyes are, after all, always more than one (no need to be good at maths to know this!) – every translator can make a mistake every now and then (we mean minor mistakes that end up in a translation regardless of how much of an expert the translator might be). The translator is primarily focused on the accuracy of the translation in comparison to the original making a spelling error or two quite easy to make. Besides the translation meeting the meaning, tone, style, etc. of the original, the proofreader will also ensure that the language of the stylistically and orthographically correct translation flows well.

UNICORN #4:
“A true translator will translate this in a heartbeat”

Specialised translators do know their field of expertise very well and can, in principle, translate in their field of expertise faster than someone who does not know it that well. However, this does not mean that your text will be translated twice as fast as the translation norm stipulates.

Let us picture this based on a real-life scenario: the baseline translation norm determines that 250 words can be translated in 1 hour. For simple texts, the word count can be higher (up to approx. 300 words). With more complex texts, the translator will spend more than an hour for 250 words. If research is needed because the field of translation is fairly new, reference material might not be easy to obtain or answers from the client might take a while, necessitating more time for the translation.

UNICORN #5:
Machine translation will sooner or later replace translators

False. Google Translator might have made significant progress in recent years, but it still cannot provide quality translations, especially for Slovenian, which is an inflection language. Inflection languages inflect words (add suffixes), which greatly affects the overall meaning of a sentence and makes it nearly impossible to translate word by word, which is still quite typical of machine translation.

Not to speak off the cuff, we tested it today. It was not entirely wrong in all regards, but the blood sausage confused the poor thing so much it didn't even believe its own previous translations!

Machine translators can be of great help, but they do not understand the context, which is where they fall short.  To illustrate the latter example, take a look at the image below – sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.