Why I became a translator

A long time ago, when I was little, television was not as common as it is now. The first official Dutch television broadcast took place in October 1951. At first there was a single channel, a second was introduced in 1964. In mid 1962 there were just over a million television sets in the Netherlands.
Between the 12th of August and the 14th of December 1964, broadcasts were made from the "REM-eiland", a platform in the North Sea. The Dutch REM company (Reclame Exploitatie Maatschappij) was founded in 1963 to broadcast commercial radio and television. As this was not permitted by Dutch law, the company decided to broadcast American and British series, such as Mr Ed, The Invisible Man and The Saint, from a location just outside territorial waters. It is now hard to imagine television without commercials.

I loved to watch these and other television series such as The Man From Uncle and Star Trek (nowadays referred to as "the original series") in which Mr Spock stated "Fascinating" while raising one eyebrow. In the Netherlands everything was and is subtitled, as opposed to the custom in, for example, Germany, where nearly everything is dubbed. Watching these programs and reading the subtitles I slowly realised that the words uttered by the actors and what it said in the subtitles did not have a one-to-one relation. "Would you mind if I open the window?" to which the reply was "No" was subtitled with a question for which the subtitle was the Dutch equivalent of "Yes". How was this possible? And then it turned out that the question in Dutch was rephrased into "Is het goed als ik het raam open doe?" (literally "Would it be alright if I open the window?"). The English answer "No" and the Dutch translation "Ja" (Yes) were total opposites and yet absolutely correct. How fascinating!

I can honestly say that I learned English from watching television. Programmes such as Monty Python's Flying Circus further increased my admiration for the English language. They were not everyone's cup of tea, but they certainly were mine! The Pythons demonstrated the versatility and flexibility of the language (and were incredibly funny to boot). Another favourite of mine is Eddie Izzard. I have listened to the CDs of his shows many times and especially the earlier ones still crack me up.

Dutch is a wonderful language, but in English you can string all kinds of words together and still make a correct sentence. When translating these sentences into Dutch it can often be a struggle to determine which words belong together and to convert the separate bits into a comprehensible sentence. When you succeed, it makes you proud. Sometimes you can be over the moon about a specific translation that really works. This is the beauty of our profession. At these times you know why you became a translator.

L.S.