5 Basic Skills For Translation

Transitioning from language learning to translation is difficult - often because it's easy to assume that you've been doing translation in the classroom for years. We all know those short sentence assignments - translate x into y. But textbook exercises exist to help you with grammar and vocabulary application - not actual translation.

After practicing translating for about a year, I've come up with five primary skills that one should consider when going into translation.

How To Decide On A Translation: 5 Steps for Literature Lovers

Summer has finally arrived, and somehow, you've managed to find the time to read Anna Karenina. Or maybe it's Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse or Candide by Voltaire. Whatever you're reading, it the original was written in a tongue you don't understand. And anything famous, anything translated, must have the trait of being universally understood, right? Any translation should do if that's the case.

But is it?