Don't: think that your friend can translate because she's bilingual

Nay nay! Being bilingual does not mean that someone can translate. If that were the case, professional translators wouldn't spend years in colleges or universities to learn their skills. Now let's be honest for a second here, and I mean really honest: how many of you can say "yes, I am extremely confident about my grammar and vocabulary skills in English"? Come on, admit it. At the beginning of this article, how many of you wouldn't have noticed anything, had I written "If that was the case..."? And can you honestly make the right choice between "it's" and "its", "they're" "there" and "their", "then" and "than"? If you can, congratulations, and I'm sure you're not the ones I have to convince here, since you probably understand how difficult going from one language to another can be. If you can't, first let me thank you for your honesty, and then, let me address the "yeah, I'm bilingual, I can do that translation for you" myth.

So your friend is bilingual and you think she can tackle a translation for you. I have a few questions. Your friend has two hands, do you also think that she can play the piano? Ok, now the real questions... Where has she learned the other language? At home, at school, in another country? If she didn't learn it in a school environment, stop for a second and ask yourself how she acquired her writing skills (especially her grammar). It takes at the very least a couple of years in a school environment to begin to have a grip on the written language. If she did, how long ago was it? Ten years? Thirty? Do you remember grammar rules you learned in school thirty years ago? And now the question that hurts. Imagine for a second that she did a very bad job and that you get in trouble with your boss or your clients because of her. How are you going to fix this one? What are you going to tell them? That you wanted to save a few bucks? And are you going to tell your friend at all? So I'll close by saying once again that in the world of translation, as for almost everything else, you get what you pay for.