Last week, we talked about how to Pursue Excellence in our translations. The second Best Practice in the Fidelity area of translation quality is to Ensure Accuracy. We want to avoid the idea that as long as we include the basic information from the original document, we can freely adapt information in our translation.
The reality is that a good translation matches the original document: it doesn’t add any information, leave any out, or change any. If we take too much freedom with a translation, it stops being a translation and is only an adaptation.
A great strategy to Ensure Accuracy is to follow the process outlined in the mini-course “1-2-3 Translation” that I referred to in an earlier blog.
- READ the original document and make sure you completely understand. Look up any unfamiliar words or terms.
- TRANSLATE the document, making sure you convey the same information, but in a way that is natural in the other language. You can move words around in the sentence to accomplish this.
- REVIEW the translation by comparing it to the original document. Check to see if anything was omitted, added or changed, and make adjustments as needed.
This 1-2-3 process will ensure that your translation is faithful to the original text, that is accurate.
Next week, we will talk about the third practice in the area of Fidelity in translation. Stay tuned!
Have a great day!
Liane 🙂
