In a nutshell, a translator is a human being who changes written words from one language to another. If this sounds obvious, take another look! First, it's important to note that although computers play an important role in translation, professional translators are
humans, not computers. Second, a translator works with written words, unlike an interpreter, who works with spoken words. If you're new to the industry, you've learned something important right here; that the phrase "speaking through a translator," contradicts
itself, since translators work in writing. While some people work as both translators and interpreters, most concentrate on one or the other
Translators are also, by definition, fluent in more than one language. In the industry, these are referred to as the source, or from" language(s), and the target, or "into" language, which is almost always the translator's native language. So for example, a translator who is a native English speaker and learned Portuguese and Spanish might translate from Spanish and Portuguese into English. If you work in the most common language pairs, such as English paired with French, Italian, German or Spanish (known as FIGS in the translation industry), chances are that you will never translate into your second or third language. If you work in a less common language pair, you might find yourself as the exception to this rule. A client might need a document translated from Thai into English, a job that would usually be handled by a native. English speaker who has Thai as a second or third language
However in practice, it's often easier to find a native Thai (or Lingala, Malayalam, Fulani, etc) speaker who has English as a second language since there are many more native Thai speakers who also speak English than the other way around. In this case
the job might be handled by a native Thai speaker, and then proofread by a native English speaker
In the United States, most translators work from one or two source languages; it's extremely common for translators to have only one working language pair, like Spanish into English, or
Japanese into English. In other areas of the world where foreign languages are more widely studied, most translators work from at least two source languages, and often many more. It's not at all unusual to find Europe-based translators who work, for example, from English, Spanish and French into German, or from Norwegian, Swedish and English into Danish