Having it both ways? Bi-Directional Translation

Another frequent student question... Since I can translate from Language A to B, can I also translate from B to A?

My answer: Usually not. This is because because the standard in the translation industry is that we translate only into our mother tongue. You may be a very talented linguist who can translate from half a dozen source languages, but generally translators only translate into one target language - their mother tongue.

Why is this so? Because the nuances of cultural reference and idiom are extremely difficult to capture for a non-native speaker and this is picked up by the native reader, who senses something "off" in the writing, even if it is technically correct.

But I do qualify this by saying that there are rare exceptions of translators (though I'd never met one) who are able to write more than one language at mother tongue-level and therefore can translate both ways.

Having clarified this point countless times, I realized that the time had come to seek out one of these rare birds who can translate both ways. I was not interested in interviewing one of those comical characters whose frequent list postings, liberally peppered with grammatical bloopers, advertise that they translate both ways, as though this were a normal and accepted thing. Get this clear - IT IS NOT! I will re-emphasize that the industry standard is only to translate into your mother tongue.

A professional translator of standing who can and does translate both ways... this is the rare bird that interests me. My investigations led me to a few candidates:

• Michael Prawer, a veteran translator and a qualified lawyer, said that he translated "the other way" only for legal documents, since he knows that the client is not seeking idiomatic perfection but rather precision and technical knowledge. He said he would not translate any other kind of document "the other way."
• Sharon Blass, a seasoned Hebrew-English translator, said that after 36 years of immersion in Hebrew-speaking society, she feels that her Hebrew is mother-toungue level, and she is now tentatively getting up the "chutzpah" (her term) to translate "the other way."
• Another translator, who did not wished to be named, said she has many years of experience translating both ways. Yet she admits that she still feels more confident translating into her mother tongue and tries to ask a native speaker to look over her work when she translates "the other way."

I'm glad to say that I did find one translator who says she really does translate both ways with confidence. Shoshana London Sappir was born in the US and came to Israel at age 8. This is certainly no guarantee of having both languages - in fact people in this situation often end up having no mother tongue. Indeed, Shoshana admits that her English never fully developed until she got a job in English-language journalism as an adult. As a result of working hard to fix up her English in order to write professionally, Shoshana says that she now has two mother tounges and that she writes professionally in both.

Two mother tongues... that's what it takes to go both ways. Perhaps so long as we have a concept of "the other way," bi-directional translation will remain on the other side. I'll bet a human being who genuinely has two mother tongues is as rare as two mother hens' teeth. I'm assuming that all my subjects are incredibly talented linguists - make no mistake. Most translators never dream of going "the other way."

I think I might revise my answer to the question of "can I do it both ways?" I'm upgrading from "usually not" to "almost unheard-of."