I’ve an interesting question…
Has anyone here had their aircraft records/logbooks translated?
I’m planning to put my Aircraft on N-Reg in the near future, and will need to have Swedish and Hungarian documents/logbooks translated to English for that.
Does anyone have any wisdom, experience, guidance or gesticulating chimpanzee words for me?
Oh, and I read this one: https://www.euroga.org/forums/hangar-talk/1531-eu-looking-for-translators-who-know-about-flying#post_22514
But I highly doubt that ‘company’ was ever really formed… (tsk tsk, would have been great right about now…)
Thanks
Hmmm… I must have overlooked that old post. I am in the translation business but, regretfully, no Hungarian at all, and my Swedish isn’t up to professional standards (though I work with Danish and Norwegian). Given the specifics of our field, I would strongly recommend to stay away from translators with no aviation background – in fact, I would rather entrust it to an aviation professional (a pilot or, better yet, a maintenance engineer) who is not a professional translator but speaks English at a native or near-native level, and then have it checked by a technical writer based in the USA.
Thanks for your advice @Ultranomad
I was reticent about going to a local translator for just those reasons, thanks.
Any Swedish Pilots out there having nothing to do during the eternal night?
AF, I may be able to help with translation from Hungarian (my native language). PM me if you are interested.
IMHO it would depend on the content and who is going to read it. I reckon that anybody whose mother tongue is English, who knows the aviation field (and its specific language) well and who can use google translate to get the general idea, can translate purely technical documents into English adequately. The vocabulary is limited and there is no idiomatic or marketing language etc. Best to not try that with Croatian for which google translate is absolutely crap, and maybe Hungarian is the same?.
In the 1970s, aged about 13, before I forgot most of my Czech, but when I knew little English, I translated a load of Hewlett-Packard plotter maintenance manuals from English to Czech. HP were trying to sell a load of gear to CZ, apparently. For someone who was into electronics it was dead easy, but took for ever, typing the output on an old typewriter. The funny bit was that a lot of the components didn’t exist in CZ e.g. the pure luxury of field effect transistors, or even the wonderful BC109 
But AFAICT no matter how you do it it is a slow job. My father used to do it a lot and we knew some Czechs nearby who did it full-time. It used to pay very well. But for idiomatic / colloquial / marketing / promotional / sarcastic / humorous work you need to be really good.
Don’t these docs need some sort of certified translator?
Peter wrote:
Don’t these docs need some sort of certified translator?
Yes they do. But as @Ultranomad suggested, I think it would probably be better to have a pilot or mechanic do it first, and then just hand that to the certified translator and have them proof/check it.
I’ll pay the certified translator the same (in the end) but I’ll get a better job done this way. I think. Right?
Well, maybe I should dust off my Swedish – after all, I did study it, albeit long ago. With 33 years of professional translation practice (which included other Scandinavian languages, too), I can certainly achieve the right quality, it’s only the work pace that needs to be regained.
Cannot help with Hungarian, but a former neigbour in London is a professional translator (much tech stuff) from/to Scandinavian languages and English. PM me if you need his details.
