“I want to serve the Lord through translation and searched online for volunteer work in Spanish translation.”Juliana
The aim of the MissionAssist translation service is to accurately convey meaning from one language to another, for the benefit of a mission worker and their mission, without charge.
Recent tasks have ranged from translating a library of small literacy booklets called Shell Books to a large Crisis Management Manual for an international mission agency. Large documents can be split into sections to share the task amongst the team.
Our Translation service has a good reputation and requests exceed capacity, which provides an opportunity for new volunteers to get involved. French or Spanish native speakers with translation experience and an understanding of linguistics would be particularly welcome at this time.
Alongside our busy French and Spanish teams, MissionAssist also has some dedicated Portuguese translators providing a service for European and Brazilian Portuguese.
The majority of requests that we receive are for translation from English into another major European language. However, our service is open to enquiries for any language and therefore we would like to build up our list of translators whom we can contact if an occasional project would require their language.
Volunteers willing to do proofreading in their first language would also be very welcome.
“I’m really interested in translation and I like the idea of translating different types of documents to the ones I work on in my employment.”Paula
Key Tasks for translators
- Provide an initial translation, usually from written text.
- Check someone else’s translation before it is delivered.
- Keep in contact with the service coordinator, to support their role of assigning tasks and checking progress for the client’s timeline.
Requirements for translators
- Translation qualification.
- Experience of translating between languages, including English.
- Willingness to work as part of a team, giving and receiving feedback to deliver translations to a high standard.