{"id":15923,"date":"2024-10-23T18:47:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/?p=15923"},"modified":"2024-10-23T18:47:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:47:36","slug":"101-things-a-translator-needs-to-know-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/101-things-a-translator-needs-to-know-1\/","title":{"rendered":"101 things a translator needs to know \u2013 #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Translators don’t translate words – they translate meaning<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machines and dictionaries translate words. But it takes a thinking, reasoning human being to translate what words mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider how you would translate the simple command “Shoot”, depending on whether the person doing the shooting is a soldier, a footballer, a photographer, a gambler throwing dice, or a friend with something to tell you that you are eager to hear. The key here, as in all translation, is context.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I would add to the above (it was published in 2014) that AI, as good as it has become, is still a machine in this sense. Until it becomes truly intelligent, thinking and reasoning and feeling like a human being, it will never be able to translate everything and really get the meaning across in all its facets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said before – and am bound to say again and again – I love language and getting to the bottom of the meaning of a text, and I love finding just the right word to convey said meaning in the other language. Hitting the mark, as it were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the differences between one word or phrase and another is very subtle. But getting it right makes the difference between a translation of the words and really conveying the meaning behind the words into the target language, and that is the key to being successful as a translator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is number 1 of the “101 things a translator needs to know<\/a>” compiled by WLF Think Tank. If you haven\u2019t heard of it, go to the website and check it out. I got my copy from Chris Durban herself at a translator\u2019s conference in Berlin a few years ago. It is full of useful, often funny, sometimes familiar, but always sound advice both for beginners and seasoned translators.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image by Julia Lemba<\/a> on istockphoto.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Translators don’t translate words – they translate meaning Machines and dictionaries translate words. But it takes a thinking, reasoning human being to translate what words mean. Consider how you would translate the simple command “Shoot”, depending on whether the person doing the shooting is a soldier, a footballer, a photographer, a gambler throwing dice, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2416,956,2798,966,1184],"tags":[2411,287,341,97,166],"class_list":["post-15923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-101-things-a-translator-needs-to-know","category-english","category-language","category-professional-translation","category-translation-2","tag-101-things-a-translator-needs-to-know","tag-englisch","tag-language","tag-professional-translation","tag-translation","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bullseye.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15923"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15930,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923\/revisions\/15930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-z-translations.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}