The UN will have 40% of its translators and almost 35% of its interpreters retire within the next 10 years. It goes without saying that these soon-to-be empty positions will need to be filled. While translators of UN official languages aren’t hard to find, it takes a lot more than your run-of-the-mill freelance translator to fill a translator seat at the UN. Many university educated linguists with highly developed and specialized industry translation skills still often fail the UN translation exams, despite their expertise in language translation.
Because of the approaching conundrum, the UN started signing MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with universities in order to develop and implement linguistics programs that will prepare students and ensure enough qualified candidates to meet UN language translation standards, which, as you can imagine, are some of the strictest and highest translation standards in the world. Among the universities that have signed MOUs with the UN are Shanghai International Studies University and Beijing Foreign Studies University in China, The American University in Cairo, University of Westminster in UK, Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, Minsk State Linguistic University in Belarus, Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Russia, and several others in France, Spain, Lebanon, Syria, Belgium and Switzerland.
So what exactly are the UN qualifications for translation candidates? Of the 6 official languages of the UN - Chinese, English, Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish - translators must be proficient in 2 other languages aside from their native or main language, except for Chinese translators, who are required to be proficient in English and Chinese. English translators must be proficient in French and one other language. Arabic, French, Spanish and Russian translators must be proficient in English and one other UN language. Other qualifications include a first-level degree from a university, and passing the United Nations Competitive Examination for Translators.
That doesn’t sound so hard, for translators fluent in 3 languages - right? Well, those are the “official” qualifications, but the exam in and of itself is where most translators fail. The high rate of failure on the exam is the reason that the UN started the university MOUs to begin with, back in 2007. In addition to UN document translation, UN translators usually have specialized knowledge and skill translating difficult texts under tight deadlines, in areas of politics, economics, legal matters, administrative affairs, finance, human rights, and more.
According to the Language Outreach of the United Nations website, if a UN translator mistranslates or skips over even one tiny preposition, it could lead to a terrible and very serious mistake. In order to acquire perfect precision of any given document translation, terminology equivalents are found using standard bilingual dictionaries, comprehensive monolingual dictionaries, other UN documents, highly specialized dictionaries and glossaries, specific subject references and glossaries prepared by the Terminology and Reference Section, and yes, the internet. In addition to their mastery of language translation, UN translators excel in writing, have political knowledge and sensitivity, and a broad understanding and knowledge of international affairs.
