TRANSLATING WITHOUT LOSING THE SPIRIT: STORY OF RAVI KUMAR

Ravi Kumar, Founder of Modlingua Group, served as a faculty member for Spanish and Latin American Studies (2000-2013) at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi, ranked amongst Top 10 Business Schools in India. He had completed B.A, M. A and M.Phil in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is a Law Graduate (LLB). In addition to this, he had served as an Advisor to Punjab Technical University for setting up School of Foreign Languages and Centre for Language Innovation. Currently, he is a member of advisory board of Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India involved in a project set up under the directives of the Supreme Court of India for developing translation tools in Legal domain.

He is also a writer and social worker and was awarded as Professional Translator of the Year in 2013. He is Founder President of Indian Translators Association.

Annie: Please tell us something about Modlingua Group and how does it work?

Ravi: Modlingua is a translation and training service delivery company. I started it when I was a student at Jawaharlal Nehru university doing my masters in 1999. We ran it for some time as a providership company and gradually converted it into a private limited company in 2004. Since then we had not looked back and have grown in terms of business as well as brand value and catered to approximately more than 1000 clients from small to medium and medium to large companies across the globe. Eventually, we also realized that we should play a leadership role in promoting professional development of language translators in India. So, we took initiatives to create various platforms including Indian Translators Association to unite people at a common platform and train them to take the language activities to the next level. We feel very happy that so far whatever we planned has gone smooth and we continue to grow. Another USP of our company is that we focus more on delivery of quality services than on the volume of business. We prefer to work with less people but have happy clients.

Annie: Sometimes translation cannot preserve the spirit or idea due to vocabulary constraints of a language. What suggestions would you give to translators facing such a situation?

Ravi: For any good translator, vocabulary is a very important tool. There are many translators who maintain their online glossaries. These glossaries are not made purely from dictionary point of view but from context and domain expertise point of view. So, the more specialized glossary you have the easier your life becomes. While doing translation, many times, there are words for which you many not find exact expression or meaning because that concept doesn’t exist in that particular language. At that point of time it becomes important for the translator to do research and maintain the resources as it becomes a very challenging task. This is why maturity and experience of translator matter in such situations. In general, when you are doing official translation the facts are important but when you are doing literary translation you have liberty to add and delete some words but still maintain the original meaning.  

Annie: Can you share any corporate experience which taught you a very powerful lesson in your life?

Ravi: The only thing that has taught me a big lesson is that you shall not depend on your friends for doing your work only on the basis of emotional connect, as some may not meet the required professional standards, and they may not understand the kind of risk you are involved in due to their adventurism. For example, you may hire someone who do not have professional ethics and experience and you do not have control on his/her activities and without passing it through any checkpoints you forward it to the client. Client might also start using the product or the translation or the content without any checkpoint. This can cause friction if the quality of work is poor. Client may get furious. So, one should be very careful while hiring professionals and there must be checkpoints even if you have trust on what somebody has delivered. In the beginning as a student and as a learner we make mistakes and we learn. There are some mistakes that you do more often because of the volume of the projects and you do not frame proper contract with defined terms and conditions of payment. In such situations you end up doing your work but fail to receive appropriate acknowledgment and monetary reward from the client. Therefore, one must take approval on sample content and take approval from client before producing the work. So, you should be careful in dealing with such groups. These are the two lessons which I often share with friends and as well as with professionals who are trying to evolve.

Annie: How does it feel to get recognition like Professional Translator of the year award?

Ravi: The first recognition came to me when Microsoft India published my success story in 2005 for my activism in promoting language and translation industry of India.  Later I was elected as one of the council board members of International Federation of Translators in 2008 in Shanghai, China. International Federation of Translators is a body that unites approximately 100 plus associations of the world. Being a board member of this global body gave me an opportunity to interact and learn from the language leaders and activists of the world. It further helped me a lot and kept me motivated to promote professional development among language students and scholars. Since then I have been continually active doing variety of things for upliftment of language people as a language activist and researcher. I received many accolades from other sections of the society, but this award instituted by BITS, Pune was a special one. If you receive a recognition within India from your own fraternity it certainly gives you lot of pride and joy which keeps you driving.

Annie: Are there any pitfalls to avoid in the translation business?

Ravi: Yes, pitfalls are there. Many a times new comers do not understand the importance of quality control and focus largely on volume of work. As there are now machine translation tools, memory translation tools, which can help in better and faster translation. This can be leveraged when you learn project management and team work. So, it’s not only the linguistic capabilities that you require in this but also IT capabilities, management capabilities or self-branding, social media marketing, blogging and vlogging. All these are part of our lives. These things are important If you want to become smart and add value to yourselves.

However, the machine brain can’t write a poetry for you. The machine can’t add morality in your thoughts. Machines can’t add creativity and compassion. It can’t add empathy, love and affection. All these things are possible only with human brain.

But parallelly, there is increase in consumption pattern of multi-linguistic content as well. So, we need not worry that humans will be replaced. Certainly, the form of delivery will change but the thought will remain there. Like we started writing on leaves or slates but later shifted to paper, computer typing and then wireless typing and then to voice recognition speech technology. These are all forms of changes. But the thoughts always remain there.

Annie: Apart from the professional life, what gives you joy?

Ravi: I do variety of social activities and my social activities revolve around promoting language professionals. In addition to this, I mentor new comers. For example, I provide internship programs in every summer. Currently, we have 100+ interns working with us. Also, I am also a lawyer and I try to make people comfortable by empowering them with knowledge of rules and regulations of law. Plus, I do write blogs and create vlogs. I am also involved in promoting critical thinking and nationalism. In conclusion, helping others drives me. I like networking with people.

Annie: If there is a book to be written about your life, what title would you give to the book and why?

Ravi: Since my childhood till today I have had a good life. I have tried to learn and evolve on a daily basis. So, I would say the appropriate title would be: “Ravi Kumar in a constant evolving stage”. I am from science background with biology, maths, physics and chemistry. But simultaneously I learned political science and foreign languages and slowly moved to IT. I am now comfortable with IT and designed my website by myself. I have also learned video editing and sound editing. After this, I thought of becoming a lawyer. So, now I have little bit knowledge on law also. I don’t get stuck at one point. I try to move quickly

Annie: How can Bloggers Alliance serve the bloggers and content creators community in a better way?     

Ravi: It is a good idea because now-a-days I have noticed that because of SEO, social media marketing and content have become most desirable skills. So, from that perspective there is a bright future for bloggers, content writers but it takes time to get established in any profession. So, if you are using blogging as a part time activity then it is fine. But if you want to become a full-time blogger you need to learn some techniques, IT rules, SEO rules and some ethics for using visuals and storytelling. All these things are equally important to reaching out to people. If you write a blog and no one reads it then it has no value. At Bloggers Alliance we can learn from each other. So, if one commits a mistake, one improves and moves ahead.

RAVI KUMAR

Founder and Vlogger at Modlingua Group | Career Coach | Legal Translator and Conference Interpreter

(https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ravikumarin/)

ANNIE JAIN

Social Media Executive at Bloggers Alliance

Pursuing PGDM from NDIM

(https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/annie-jain9/)