| The Right Word | translation, editing and language correction | |
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"What is translation? A poet's head upon a platter." (Vladimir Nabokov) Contrary to the
myth propagated by the purveyors of computer 'translation programmes',
there is not a one-to-one mathematical correspondence between any two
languages on Earth. A living language is a subtle and evolving network
of linguistic patterns, historical usage and cultural associations, which
an author combines with his or her skill and life experience to produce
a text more or less representative of his or her intentions and more or
less rich in meaning. When it comes to translation, it takes one skill
to appreciate and understand all of the meanings and associations in the
text one reads, and an entirely different one to reproduce them in a second
language. The first is relatively easy for a linguist; the second is extremely
hard to do well in any language other than one's mother tongue. Many people
read and speak several languages fluently. That is not the same as writing
them accurately. Compared with many other languages, English is very easy
to 'get by in', and peculiarly difficult to master at a high level; as
a result of which most speakers of English as a foreign language over-estimate
their command of the written language. Unless you are a Joseph Conrad
or a Vladimir Nabokov, it is very easy as a non-native speaker to come
unstuck when writing English at a high level and to produce ambiguity,
confusion and unintentional humour. I offer translation from: Swedish to English Depending on the language and the level of the text, I may enlist help from colleagues and associates to check my work. Nobody is perfect! However, I always take full responsibility for the finished English version. (For more details of how I work, see this page.) |
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