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4.2 Comparative grammar - the present continuous form in English and Spanish

Spanish has a present continuous verb tense (estoy hablando)  just as English does (I’m talking), and while it has a deceivingly similar form, it is quite different in usage. The English present continuous is much more versatile and is used to refer to actions in progress at the moment as well as to ongoing actions (not necessarily in progress at the moment), future actions, and sometimes, habitual actions.

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4.1 Translating the Spanish present simple tense to English

There are some differences in the uses of the present tense in Spanish and English that merit study for the purpose of improving the grammar of our English target texts. Sometimes in translating we are tempted to conjugate the verb into whichever tense it is in within the source text; however, this approach leads to confusing translations which do not read naturally.

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3.3 Conclusion

In this lesson we’ve detailed a five step process for translating to help you produce the most accurate and readable translations. The steps are: 1. Read the ST carefully, 2. Confirm meaning, 3. Write a first draft, 4. Re-read and Edit, and 5. Write a final draft and check. We recommend following these steps for every translation you do for this course, as well as for every translation you perform afterwards.

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3.2 The Five Steps of the Translation Process

In the on-site translation course last year, we presented seven steps to the translation process. Now, as we focus on the specific types of translation you’ll be doing, we’ve streamlined this into a five-step process. While it may be tempting to make translation a two-step process in which you read the source text and then directly create a final draft, following these steps will help you to create more accurate and readable translations.

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3.1 The Translation Process

In order to achieve a successful translation, a translator must go through a process of discovering the message of the ST and re-expressing that message in the TL. The process is not one of simply finding equivalent words or phrases to match those found in the ST, but finding a way to express the equivalent message. The process of translating can be imagined on an abstract level in the following sequence:

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2.4 Conclusion

In this lesson we’ve provided some basic guidelines to help you maintain professional standards and produce high-quality translations.

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2.3 Guidelines for Translating Phone Messages

You may sometimes be asked to translate a phone message from Spanish to English. This activity is a hybrid of interpretation (rendering an oral message in the SL to the TL) and translation (rendering a written message in the SL to the TL). Here you will be transforming an oral message in the SL into a written message in the TL.

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2.2 Guidelines for Translating Forms

Bilingual staff at DCS may also be asked to translate forms. In this case, you would be translating a Spanish-speaking client’s responses on a form. Sometimes you may be asked to translate a client’s response on an entire form while other times you might only be translating part of the form, which would be indicated with a circle around the text to be translated.

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