The Golden Rule For A Spanish Translation Service

By Author: sammdsn0
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Translation is as much an art as a skill. While mechanics and best practices can be learned, the fundamental quality that makes one linguist good and another not so good is the intangibles, the inspiration and the comprehension not only of the language but also of the concepts, culture and mentality of a target language.

Translation is not a skill to be learned the way one can learn to operate a drill press. Rather, translation draws from the entirety of one’s skills, education and experiences - it is equal parts hard work, concentration, inspiration and at times exacerbation. At all times, translation must mean perfection.

If one were to reduce the art of translation into a single, digestible notion, it would be that translation concerns itself not with the transformation of words but rather with the expression of meaning.

For practitioners of translation, this is the most salient concept – the golden rule, if you will. While such basic skills as grammar and spelling remain indispensible (and many fail even to master even these basic skills), the most important, and obvious, concept for a ...
... translator remains the need not just to understand each and every word, but to completely grasp the concepts that the words express.

Linguists that focus on words rather than concepts will find that they produce literal translations that are at best rife with mistranslation and awkwardness. At worst, such literal translations are often completely incomprehensible or misleading. It is astonishing to encounter the number of individuals offering translation services who have not mastered this most basic of concepts.

Using a Spanish translation to illustrate the point, take the following Spanish saying: “De Guatemala a Guatepeor.”

A literal translation (provided the translator understood the wordplay present in the phrase) of the Spanish would be “From Guatemala to Guate-worse” - a completely useless and incomprehensible translation.

Google Translate http://translate.google.com/#es|en translates it thusly: “Of Guatemala into the fire” - an astonishingly horrible translation on all measures.

A more accurate Spanish to English translation would fire one’s neurons thusly:

Mala (as in GuateMALA) means bad. Peor (as in GuatePEOR) means worse. Of course, as those of you who know Spanish will realize, the word Guatepeor doesn’t really exist. Replacing mala (bad) with peor (worse) is a play on words. The expression “De Guatemala a Guatepeor” means “From bad to worse” or perhaps more colloquially, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” In either case, the word Guatemala should not appear in the translation at all as the concept has absolutely nothing to do with it even though the words seem to reference the Latin American nation.

Now just imagine an entire Spanish translation rife with translation such as “From Guatemala to Guatepeor” when one really wants to say simply that something has gone from bad to worse.

The other side of the coin is that one not only needs to comprehend the concept, but one must be able to express the concept adequately in the target language, in this case from Spanish to English. While a translation such as “then things got worse” might capture the meaning (and would certainly be comprehensible than taking the reader on a diversion to Central America), it surely doesn’t capture the tone or spirit of the translation.

This is what is meant when translation is called an art as much as a skill and why master linguists should be considered professionals of the highest degree – a skilled linguist is not a skilled laborer, or even a trained craftsman, but really a special kind of artist.

Always remember look for professional translation services that can provide high-quality Spanish to English translation. They may cost more, but you will see where the extra money went.
For a professional spanish translation service or translation services in hundreds of languages, choose a service who’s quality you can trust.