Last week, we talked about the first step in moving from being bilingual to being able to do written translation: learning to make detailed connections between two languages so that the translation has Fidelity (matches the original document).
The second step relates to the second most important aspect of translation quality, Readability. A translation must be readable in the other language: it needs to flow nicely and sound natural to native speakers of that language.
Step #2 in becoming a translator is to learn how to arrange words naturally in the other language. During this process, you move away from the tendency to translate word-for-word, and become comfortable with moving words and expressions around in sentences to make them flow better.
For example, the equivalent of “the next three days” in French is literally “the three next days”. That’s what sounds natural to a French speaker, so that’s what they expect to see in a sentence.
A bilingual person who becomes a good translator learns to recognize and avoid “language interference”. Language interference occurs when we write something incorrectly because that’s the way we would do it in the other language. With time and training, we can overcome this impulse so that our translations sound natural.
Basically, Step #2 for a bilingual to become a translator involves taking the freedom to move words around while translating. Sometimes taking the end of a sentence and moving it to the beginning in the translation can make it sound more natural. Each language has its own character, and working in harmony with a language’s character results in a translation that has Readability!
Next week, we’ll talk about Step #3 in becoming a translator.
Have a great day!
Liane 🙂
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