Why I am kicking myself today

My mom called last night to ask me to do her a favor. The school she is teaching at now has a large population of children whose parents only speak Spanish, so anything they send home must be in both English and Spanish. Apparently they have a translator/interpreter who works for the school that can do those kinds of things, but they are really busy with the new school year starting. So she wanted me to translate a letter for the parents into Spanish for her. And of course, I said yes. The thing is, I did major in Spanish Translation as an undergraduate, and I think that I have fairly good abilities in the language. But, I also learned several things in my class that really mean that I should say no to any translation requests. In the first place, one of the biggest rules in translation is that you should generally only work going into your native language. Thus, I should only translate things from Spanish into English. I know why this is so, because I have a really hard time being able to tell if my translation really sounds good. I don't have a native's ear and it's really hard to look at the finished product and feel like it sounds natural. Also, another big rule is that you should always hire someone who is actively working in the translation field and who is accredited. I don't fit either of those criteria at all. I am working on my master's degree in Spanish, but not specifically doing any translation work right now. I didn't want to make my mom feel bad by telling her any of this, though, so now I'm frantically trying to translate a letter into Spanish and it really isn't going that well. At least I did make her promise to run it by the school's translator for revisions before she sends it out.

So yeah, those are some of my complaints about translation. It really is a specialized skill, and I hate it when I see people just assume that anyone who knows two languages can automatically translate. In San Francisco one of the museum exhibits was in English and Spanish and I noticed that some of the Spanish was really, really poorly written. It made me feel bad. It's like trying to save money by asking a veterinarian to operate on you. They have medical experience, right?

Comments

Desmama said…
You served in Madrid, right? I think I remember reading that on your blog somewhere. I was there six years ago (as a student).
8/25/2005 6:30 PM
Th. said…
Translation is the hardest thing no matter the direction. I've always been impressed you do it at all.
8/25/2005 8:33 PM
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