Translation is the interpretation of the meaning of a source text and the subsequent creation of an equivalent text, in other words, the transmission of information into another language.
This definition seems to accurately explain the essence of the so-called science. If you’re reading this, you’re probably an oral or written translator and you have to understand this classic problem that almost all translators face: you understand the context of a source text, but you can’t find the equivalent in your own language; You are also not allowed to change the context of a text and your main goal is to find the solution and find the appropriate words in your native language.
From this point of view, it all depends on the text in front of you. The legal document or a patent must be translated with surgical precision, while at the same time sales presentations, marketing documents, and works of art must sound naturally in the target language.
For a translation to sound natural, certain linguistic skills, understanding of language and its processes are required. Translation can hardly be called a science, but rather the internal music of language, a flow of phrases that connect in the text, with a precise set of terminology.
Someone still believes that translation should be considered an exact science. They say that the main thing is professional skills and knowledge, but not a subtle perception or sense of language. Science soothes it is a properly prepared and trained mind that can easily transform one language to another, just like a computer.
Translators can be divided into two groups: those who always use logic, focusing on the original text, and those who use sense, focusing on a language. It also applies to consecutive and simultaneous interpreters. There are technical translators who have the ability to translate a technical text and make it sound quite natural, and translators who literally translate the text that adheres to the original context and creates a large number of pages, hardly amenable to reading and understanding (the last statement applies in particular to the translation of literary texts in Chinese or Japanese in Europe).
The translation and interpretation process reflects how complex it is to transmit communication messages. And especially if you are doing interpretation, being a person who wants to facilitate communication and understanding between the other two people, you may want to translate something that was not said: the “hidden” meaning of the words or something that someone did not say out loud, for example, due to uncertainty. Without exaggeration I can say that you, as an interpreter, can influence the destiny of nations. A good example of what you will find in Javier Marías’ novel “Corazón Blanco” (A Heart So White), read it if you are interested in literature on translation activities.
