A competent translator shows the following attributes: * a very good knowledge of the language, written and spoken, from which he is translating (the source language); * an excellent command of the language into which he is translating (the target language); * familiarity with the subject matter of the text being translated; * a profound understanding of the etymological and idiomatic correlates between the two languages; and * a finely tuned sense of when to metaphrase ("translate literally") and when to paraphrase, so as to assure true rather than spurious equivalents between the source- and target-language texts. A competent translator is not only bilingual but bicultural. A language is not merely a collection of words and of rules of grammar and syntax for generating sentences, but also a vast interconnecting system of connotations and cultural references whose mastery, writes linguist Mario Pei, "comes close to being a lifetime job." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation#Back-translation
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:05:17 +0000