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It’s back-to-school season again! If you’ve got a moment, think back now to the last time you were in a classroom on the first day of school, or at least early in the semester, before the doldrums set in. You’re prepared at your desk, with your pen or pencil and your fresh, clean paper. You’re ready to fill that paper with copious notes. This time, when exams come around, you’ll have everything written down. The teacher begins speaking, your pencil starts moving… and after a few minutes, your notes become fragmented. Does the teacher have to talk so fast? You write down a word here, a phrase there. You’ll be able to remember what all this means later, right? You can write down your impressions, the bits of the lesson that jump out at you, and rely on your memory and the textbook to fill in the gaps. Getting every word down isn’t necessary, right?
For a student? Maybe not.
For a transcriber? Absolutely – getting every word down is the point of the job.
Transcribers (and students) have developed numerous ways of capturing every spoken word. Shorthand writing was long a part of secretarial training for this reason. You’ve probably seen court reporters at work, using stenotype machines that can code whole words with one multi-key press. Doctors, lawyers, police officers, and others have their words preserved by audio recording. However the words are captured, it then falls to a skilled transcriber to produce a written document containing every word that was spoken. Medical transcribers transfer the physician’s observations to a patient’s record. Legal transcribers make spoken proceedings available to all parties who need them after the fact. Interviews, conference presentations, meetings and symposiums may be recorded and transcribed for researchers, archivists, learners…
So what does this have to do with translation?
Hypothetical situation: you’ve got an audio record of an autopsy report from Montreal, in Canadian French. You need a written US English translation of this report. You might think sending your audio file directly to a French > English translator would be the best solution… and unfortunately, you would be wrong. Like interpretation and translation, transcription requires its own special skill set: fast fingers, an acute ear for detail, accent and nuance, and extreme composure (medical reports, courtroom testimonies, interrogations… materials for transcription are often not for the squeamish). You can’t be certain that an expert translator will also be a good transcriber!
Translation of audio materials must always involve a transcription phase. Your autopsy report will go first to a Canadian French transcriber, who will produce a transcript in the appropriate format*, which should include the identities of all speakers, timestamps as needed, and any other needed information. Then, once the transcript is signed off, this document will go to the translator, who can give total attention to the written language as presented.
Transcription is an added cost to a translation project**, and it’s not a step that can be forgone. If you’ve got to transfer spoken content into a written format, you can’t afford to let a single word drop out. Don’t short-change your project by trying to skip transcription – let the professionals help you!
* Different professions have different requirements in transcript format. As an example, here are the transcript format guidelines for the New Jersey court system. When you’re seeking transcription, make sure to be aware of any format requirements in your field, and convey them to your provider.
** Yes, TrueLanguage offers transcription services as well – however, in general we only offer transcription in conjunction with a translation project. If we transcribe it, we want to translate it, too!
