We still don't grasp the value of translators

[Surferbeetle]

Gray hair makes guys look distinguished. Gives the young gravitas...

So that's whats helping me get things done these days...

I have worked with Arabic, Kurdish, Russian, and Spanish translators...bottom line is that you get what you pay for. In CA land if you are willing to stick with open-source topics and willing/able to pay top dollar you can do well...at the macro level however you need to be aware of the potential implications of siphoning off highly educated local economy individuals from their day jobs.

Keep in mind that some professional translators, in addition to their language training (4 years +), are carrying masters degrees in translation & interpretation which help them work with business issues and the technology (databases, etc) which often accompanies technical translation efforts.

As a baseline I did the five month SOLT in Spanish; my understanding is fair and my speaking is poor...2/2/2. 3 years of high school German, 3 years of college German, 4 years on the German economy plus some other German experiences and the result is 3/3/3 (haven't taken the new test yet, but I am curious to see what it offers). A professional translator can clean my clock in both languages....and probably English as well.

The 10,000 hour rule of thumb is something to think about when considering the services of a professional. For my nickel, Brandon is on the money with this analysis of our ability to develop in-house talent in this arena:

The supply isn't there because we haven't spent the last eight years training soldiers in critical language skills. Hindsight is 20/20, but in 2001, we could've started offering $60,000/six-year signing bonuses for recruits and soldiers willing to learn Arabic/Farsi/Pashto/etc. We could've bought 6,000 such translators for the price of one F-22. We shouldn’t make the same mistake again, in my view.

Adding a focused Warrant Officer linguist program with opportunities for multiple incentive pay's is probably a realistic long term answer to our current linguist program shortages if we want to have dependable in-house capacity and capability...