What it means
مترجم (motarjem) means translator or interpreter. The word is an Arabic borrowing from the quadriliteral root ت-ر-ج-م (tarjama, to translate or render into another tongue). مترجم is the active participle of the Form I quadriliteral verb تَرْجَمَ, giving the sense of one who translates. Persian uses مترجم for both a written translator and a live oral interpreter, unlike English which distinguishes the two roles. The related noun ترجمه (tarjome) means translation as a product or act, so مترجم is literally one who performs ترجمه.
How to use it
- یه مترجم خوب گیر آوردیم. (ye motarjem-e khub gir âvardim.) “We found a good translator.”
- مترجم همزمان ترجمه میکرد. (motarjem hamzamân tarjome mikard.) “The interpreter was translating simultaneously.”
- کارش مترجمیه. (kâresh motarjamie.) “His job is translation.”
- این کتابو یه مترجم ایرانی ترجمه کرده. (in ketâbo ye motarjem-e irâni tarjome karde.) “An Iranian translator translated this book.”
Cultural note
Translation has a long history in Persian intellectual life. The Abbasid-era translation movement (eighth to tenth centuries) brought Greek philosophy and science into Arabic and then into Persian through the work of skilled مترجم-s, and many of those translations shaped medieval European scholarship. In modern Iran, literary translation is a prestigious profession: renowned translators such as Najaf Daryabandari became almost as celebrated as the original authors they translated. The word مترجم appears on business cards, official documents, and job listings without any sense of it being foreign.