The last two decades have shown a vast change in the translation industry in China. The report from TAC website (Translator Association of China) talks about the induction of Chinese translation industry in the 80’s. Prior to that, each company had their independent translators that were employed in-house. With market booming, it is quite obvious that the need for English to Chinese translators is on the rise. Despite all efforts, it has been discovered that there is a serious lack of professional translators for the job.
There are many who work as translators on a part time basis and are completely qualified to act as translators when it comes to skill and academic or terminology knowledge on all topics. Not only that, another problem that persists is that it takes a long time to learn Chinese if you’re not Chinese. When a person has learnt Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese, it is still difficult to translate the language into English in correct idioms, without any possibility of misconception or misconstruction of the phrase.
Just like English translators found it difficult to translate into exact Chinese terms, Chinese translators faced the problem and resorted to translating their mother tongue into another language or translate another language into English. This situation persisted until 2005. Since then a vast improvement has been seen in the translation industry in China as well as the translators doing the English-Chinese translation. The reason for this was that huge steps were taken by the Chinese companies for the improvement of the situation. According to one businessman, earlier the case rested where Chinese students didn’t show enough interest in their own language and translation courses.
Today, Chinese translation industry and the translation market in China is probably the largest translation market in Asia. The reports are mixed though when it comes to the success of the industry. Though the industry is big, it is not strong according to some experts. There are many agencies offering translation services, but the quality is poor or average. There are many challenges yet to be faced; one among them is the experience of translation in English that the Chinese translators still need to acquire.
The English-Chinese translation market saw a big boom in 2010 and 2011 once China had been predicted as one of the fastest growing economies, despite the global economic recession period. China is envied worldwide as the country that has had surmounting growth in the translation industry. International companies are vying to work with Chinese companies and need translators to speak to their Chinese counterparts. Thus both the parties hire professional English-Chinese translators.
Outside China, Chinese translation service has grown leaps and bounds with Internet helping many to find professional translators and translating agencies. Online translation service can also be used that translate from English to Cantonese or Mandarin, although the translation is poor in quality. One must hire a professional translator to get their documents and important papers translated while working in collaboration with a Chinese company.
