The federal government has given $174 million to the Freelancers Union in federal loans to build a CO-OP health plan for New York. The group also received $166 million in loans to launch plans in New Jersey and Oregon.

According to the Freelancers Union, these CO-OPs are non-profit health insurance plans that are focused on the needs of the insured, not making a profit. CO-OPs offer more, better and less expensive health insurance options to consumers.

We are very excited with the news since it brings affordable health care to the reach of freelance translators. The American Translators Association has more than 11,000 members, though some are based overseas.

As an ex-freelance translator, myself, I know that access to a health care plan is one of the biggest issues of the profession.

To find out more about the CO-OPs, you can visit the Freelancers Union website http://www.freelancersunion.org/co-ops/index.html

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, to translate is to:

(1) turn into one’s own or another language and,

(2) transfer or turn from one set of symbols into another: transcribe.

The first is a bit general, but it delivers the meaning. The second one gives us a clue of the instruments the translator uses to convey the message: the written language. There is yet another division within translation; the many fields in which professional translators can specialize.

And as with any other field, professional translators must have a certain set of characteristics and fulfill a number of requirements that qualify them to provide superior translation services. They should:

1. Be attentive to details (date formatting changes with language, double-check names, spelling, syntax, etc)
2. Have the ability to convey the message of an original text into another language  as if it were originally written in that second language
3. Have a thorough mastery of both the source and the target language
4. Have experience in both, general translation as well as in their field of specialization
5. Have native speaker proficiency in the target language
6. Be familiar with current terminology, idioms, vocabulary, etc.
7. Be able to grasp nuances rapidly
8. Have access to translation tools
9. Have excellent writing skills
10. Have a researcher spirit and always work on getting better in the art of translation

And just in case you are asking yourself, why is this job so important? Just as you wouldn’t trust your life to a person who isn’t a doctor, your important documents shouldn’t be treated differently. Accuracy in legal and medical translations, for example, can make the difference between solving a problem and making it worse. In marketing, it could mean winning or losing a campaign or even insulting your potential clients.

The job of professional translators, translation agencies and services is to make the process easier, faster and accurate. When you are in the process of communicating messages and ideas, getting your message across just as you intended is of utmost importance.

Throughout our years of service, our main goal has been to help clients get the service they need with the highest level of quality. But, we have realized that there is a great deal of information that needs to be shared about the different aspects of translation and localization and the need for multilingual communication.

That is why we, at JR Language Translation Service, decided to make a raid into the powerful world of Social Media to help people.

We really hope everyone at the other side of the screen find this blog both, interesting and helpful.

Enjoy,

The team at JR Language