You had no idea about the depth of meaning behind the ABC’S when you were learning them. You probably associated them with shapes, animals and people. From A’s being triangles or mountains to B’s being pregnant women with two bellies to C’s being that incomplete piece of pretzel or clipping of a nail, the world of ABC’s just quickly found its way into your head through scribbles and rolls of your tongue.

 

As you grew older, you saw the way that letters unfolded into words and words into sentences that unraveled literature and multifarious languages from different shores. Who would have thought that the mundane “A” could be pronounced and accented differently in various tongues? It used to be just that plain triangle or that green mountain you saw in children’s books.

 

Now in the real world, you begin to see that knowing how to write letters and read words is just not enough. You may need to learn more than one language to get ahead of the competition. Knowing how to speak and write two or more languages could not only win you that much-coveted job, but you may even learn to translate between languages.

 

Yet before you get too excited about translating Portuguese sonnets or Chinese screenplays, check out the common misconceptions people have about translation. Once you understand each of them, you can better understand the intricacies of the art of translation.

 

10. A dictionary, you say? I don’t need that!

 

That Korean-English dictionary wasn’t printed for nothing. It’s more than a good paperweight; it helps you translate vocabulary words that you may not be familiar with.

 

So be humble and take that foreign dictionary out of your dusty drawer. Start leafing through its pages and you may even be amazed at how much more natural your translations sound.

 

9. To hell with sentence structure and all those rigid rules in grammar! I can translate this text without learning them!

 

There’s nothing worse than a translator so dense they think they know everything. Remember that attitude also counts in translation. You have to embrace the intricacies that come with the language you’re translating and the one you’re translating to. Otherwise, you’re better off having another person translate the text for you.

 

One great example is translating English text to Spanish. Most people commit mistakes when it comes to a nouns and adjectives paired in a phrase. Contrary to the English sentence structure, Spanish has the noun coming before the adjective. You can easily imagine how you could commit the mistake of writing it the other way around if you’re translating English to Spanish without a solid grasp of the latter.

 

8. Accents my foot! Thanks, but my basic alphabet is just fine.

 

Better steer clear of French if you have this attitude. Some languages rely heavily on accents and you’ll definitely have problems understanding texts if you don’t accept the fact that they come with the translation package.

 

7. No classics for me. I’m happy with my DVDs of "Malena" and "Life is Beautiful."

 

Yes, reading classics may not be the end-all and be-all of getting better at translating texts. However, classics can be especially helpful if you wish to translate literature using old language or a formal tone.

 

If you want to stick to translating informal literature or that written by contemporary authors, then so be it. You can avoid classics like the plague as long as you want to, but if you want to be a full-bred translator, it’s best that you expose yourself to different literature, old and new, formal or informal.

 

6. Who cares about memorization? There’s always the dictionary to save me.

 

While not using the dictionary can limit your comprehension and translation skills, referring to it too much can turn it into a crutch. This keeps you from learning new vocabulary words and foreign phrases or expressions as you translate more texts in the future.

 

5. Why should I care about Chilean culture? I just want to translate Pablo Neruda’s poems.

 

Part of understanding the grammatical rules and vocabulary of a language is having a deep understanding of the culture speaking it. This is one of the major rules translators of marketing materials adhere to.

 

You also have to be careful when translating phrases, especially idioms and figures of speech. You never know if a phrase that seems appropriate to you is actually taboo in the language you’re translating to.

 

One example is mentioning body parts. While some cultures may, for example, be open to saying or writing “breasts” as part of colloquial or formal language, other cultures may consider it inappropriate.

 

4. Translation and interpretation? They’re synonyms, right?

 

Have you ever watched a beauty pageant? You may have seen some candidates speaking in their native tongue, needing the help of another person to express their answer in English. That person’s job is a lot different than translating an essay from one language to another.

 

While translation refers to turning a text written in a language into another one, interpretation is about turning one language to another orally. It’s basically about the difference between speaking and writing.

 

For this reason, translators are expected to have a more in-depth understanding of the language translated, so much so that the person can grasp its essence and can express this essence in the language translated to.

 

3. Bilingualism + high school degree = ability to translate

 

Would you leave your French translation assignment to that man across the street just because you know he speaks both French and English? There’s one good reason why the translation business is a lucrative industry: while there are millions of bilinguals and polyglots in the world, only a small fraction of these people can effectively translate a text to another language.

 

That’s not to say, though, that all translators who get paid for translating texts have flawless skills. You have to be very picky when choosing a translator. One way to ensure you’ve got a good one is to get an on-the-spot sample from a translator. Then you should let a native speaker of the language to which they translated the text from look at their work. If the native speaker says that the translator can convey the essence of the text well without sounding awkward or artificial, you may have just found your personal translator.

 

2. I hate translating texts in phrases. I work best by translating word for word.

 

You can’t appreciate a painting by looking at each of its colors and shapes separately. A jigsaw puzzle won’t be complete if you stare at every piece instead of taking everything in as a whole. The same goes with translating a text. You can’t fully understand the idea it conveys unless you take the piece as a whole. Without fully comprehending what the author wants to say, how can you expect to translate the text to another language?

 

Remember that translation is a lofty skill, a higher one compared to merely reading a text or listening to it. You’ll be in bigger trouble if you translate a text verbatim when it has a lot of idiomatic expressions or figurative language. This is often the case if you’re faced with foreign poems or proverbs.

 

The same is true if you have to work on something that employs words that do not have a direct translation to another language. Take the word "Schadenfraude" as an example. In German, it means “pleasure taken from another person’s misfortune”.

 

While you may be able to translate this German word to English without problem, you run the risk of translating the English phrase back to German word for word instead of simply using the word "Schadenfraude." Again, this is one of the reasons why it pays to know a lot about the culture you’re translating to.

 

1. This Internet translator is just the best!

 

Be wary of online translators promising to translate words, sentences and even whole websites for you. The same is true for any machine that is said to be designed to translate different languages.

 

If you were a parent, would you entrust your child to the care of a humanoid or robot for years? I think not. Well, think entrusting your text to a machine as a similar case. Keep in mind that nothing beats the skills of humans when it comes to deciphering and expressing thoughts and emotions.

 

Right now, there’s just no machine that can grasp the essence of a text and effectively translate it to another language. Instead, online translators and those handheld machines tend to translate texts word for word, thus resulting in literal translation. This is the very reason why you’ll likely end up with nonsensical texts using a machine translator.

 

Turning Tongues

 

Whether you’re a student, a language teacher, an aspiring professional translator or an enthusiast of a foreign language, debunking the myths above can help you with your translation ordeal. Knowing the facts won’t necessarily make translation easier for you, but it’s a big step towards finding the best words that capture the essence of a text.