Lingua Translations

At 18 I got this idea while waiting for my son to be born that if I wasn’t going to college right away. I needed a skill, so I went to the local book store in my community. I had learned the basics of typing but I didn’t have the speed. As I was walking through the business section, my eyes fell upon a book “How to increase your typing speed in 60 Days or Less,” so I bought it.

I had some knowledge but if I was going to expand what I knew already I had to take the next step. For me it was to read that book and apply the information. Herein lays the key to how to avoid making the biggest mistakes first time authors make.

The first step is to acknowledge you don’t know something. Then you have to assess what you do know. Once you do that, then you work on where you want to go and what you want to accomplish? In my case I knew how to place my hands on the keys and type but I did not have the speed. I had come to realize that if I was going to get a job with promise for promotion after the birth of my son, I needed to at least be able to type with speed.

Many people approach translation in a very light manner and think it is no big deal. This may be the situation if you are translating personal correspondence or a brief email but translating business documents of anything to be printed can be very serious. Translating documents is far from being easy, quick, and straightforward.

Translation needs to be approached in a serious and sensible manner in order to get the quality of document that will be effective. Before beginning a translation project, you need to look at some common misconceptions that people have to determine if you have the same attitudes.

Anyone who knows a foreign language can be a translator.This is perhaps the number one misconception about translation. Being able to read, write and speak a foreign language does not make one a translator. A translator must have a thorough in-depth understanding of two languages—a mother language and a foreign language. Translating is a skill that requires the translator to write well and understand how to do this in perfect grammar. The translator must also understand the culture behind the language being translated. If this is not the case then an accurate translation is almost impossible.

Translation is easy.This is another common misconception. Translation is not easy and can be very complex. The person doing the translation will tell you it is very intricate and sometimes painstaking. The translator must have a very sharp mind and eye and be detail oriented. The process is usually very tiring because of constantly moving between two languages. The translator must have the ability to read the source document and understand it fully then write it accurately in the target language. The translator needs to have good analytical skills as well good writing skills