2.1 Guidelines for Translating Letters

The bulk of the documents that you would be asked to translate at DCS are letters from Spanish-speaking clients. Here, we’ll take a practical look at important basic standards as well as some of the questions or challenges that may come up when translating letters in order to help you achieve the best results possible.

a) Defining our purpose

It’s important when approaching the translation of letters to remember your purpose in performing the translation. When there are clients and staff who speak different languages, which limits their ability to communicate with one another, you as bilingual staff serve as bridges who help one party to understand what the other is trying to communicate. The translator must not add any content to the message nor subtract from it, but rather transfer the complete message and nothing but the message from one language into the other. Our goal is to be as objective and clear as possible.

b) Greetings, Openings, and Closings

If the letter includes a greeting or closing, it ought to be included in the translation. These should be expressed in a way that a would be natural in a letter in English, not translated word for word from the Spanish expression. In Spanish, greetings ought to be followed by a colon, as in the example “A quien corresponda:”; however in English, the greeting should be followed by a comma, as in “To whom it may concern,”.  In the case that the greeting or opening is written in English (before a Spanish ST), it should remain in English and not be translated to Spanish. The entire target text should be written in the target language with no elements of the source language. Make sure the opening line sounds natural in English, as the manner of expression can differ between English and Spanish.

Here are some common greeting, opening, and closing expressions in letters in Spanish and English:

Example 2.1    

c) Dates

Making sure the date on a translated letter is correct is highly important to the client’s case. It is possible for dates written in numerals with slashes to be confusing when the day could also be a month (1-12), since dates are written in a different order in the United States and in Spanish-speaking countries. While in the U.S. dates are customarily written month/ day/ year, in Latin America they are written day/ month/ year. For example:

Example 2.2

However, the intended date of the author of the ST may not always be clear, as Spanish-speakers may also have adapted to the system used in the U.S. If you’re uncertain of the date the letter was written, it is important to try to find out when the letter was received by consulting the envelope or any other means in order to ensure that you include the correct date. If translating from English to Spanish, under DCS guidelines, a numerical date does not need to be translated. In other words, if you are performing a translation from English to Spanish which includes a numerical date, you should keep it in the form of month/ day/ year.

If the date is written in words in the ST, it should also be written out in the TT. In Spanish the date is written “el (day) de (month) de/ del (year), for example “el 9 de mayo del 2011”. Or it might be shortened to “9 de mayo, 2011”. In English this would be written “May 9th, 2011”.  It’s even possible to find the Spanglish “Mayo 9th, 2011” in a Spanish source text. Whether the date is written in Spanish, English, or some combination of the two in the ST, it should be in English in the TT if translating from Spanish to English.

d) Translating Formality

As we learned in last year’s translation course, register refers to the tone and level of formality in a given text. The level of formality of a source text should be maintained in a translation. If any elaborate or formal language is used in the ST, this should be reflected in the TT. Likewise, if the tone is quite informal, it is perfectly acceptable for that to also be reflected in the TT. One must be careful not to change the language in such a way that the translation is either more or less formal than the ST. For example:

Example 2.3:

Source text:

Translation:

Here, the translation of “ustedes” as “you guys” is an attempt on the part of the translator to compensate for the fact that “ustedes” is specifically the plural form of the second person, while “you” encompasses both the possibility of a singular or plural addressee. However “you guys” has a distinctly informal usage and changes the register of the statement that is written in a formal and respectful tone. It is preferable to translate “ustedes” as “you” even though this involves some loss of meaning due to grammatical differences, rather than to translate it in a way that lowers the register of the ST.

e) Translating sentences and punctuation

You will likely find incorrect punctuation and run-on sentences in the letters you are asked to translate. It is not necessary to follow the same structure as the source text, but rather is perfectly acceptable to break one long sentence into several shorter sentences (or combine a string of short sentences into one), so long as the exact message of the ST is successfully communicated. Punctuation including commas, periods, colons, and semi-colons should be used in a way that is natural in the English translation, not in the way they appear in the Spanish source text. Likewise, it is not usually necessary to translate filler words such as “pues” and “en verdad” as they do not contribute to the message of the source text, and translating them may make the target text more difficult to understand.

f) Translating Errors

One might be unsure what to do when there are grammatical or spelling errors in the source text. It could seem reasonable to attempt to make similar errors in the translation in order to communicate the level of education or writing ability of the author as in this example:

Example 2.4:

Source Text

Translation with errors

However, doing this would contradict the purpose of our translating: to communicate the message of the ST into the TL in the clearest way possible. Purposefully committing errors in the TT would only create confusion and make the message of the ST more difficult to decipher. In fact, making errors in the TT would be another way of prioritizing form over message, though in this case it would be the incorrect form of the author, rather than the SL grammar rules, that would be transferred to the TL. In other words: we ought to translate the message of the ST into the TL using correct grammar and spelling in the TL regardless of mistakes made in the ST.

If there is any confusion about the content of the message of the source text, this can be signaled using a translator’s note. To write a translator’s note, place an asterisk (*) at the end of the section which is unclear and another asterisk at the bottom of your target text. Your note should be clear and concise and explain the cause of the confusion (illegibility, unclear who the author is referring to, etc.). If possible, you should still try to translate the message to the best of your ability.

g) Acronyms and Abbreviations

An acronym is a word formed by the first letter (or sometimes first part of the word) of a compound term. For example UN is an acronym for the United Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement is known as NAFTA. The most common acronyms you will be using are those of your employer: DOJ and DCS. If these, or other clear and obvious acronyms, are used in a text when translating from English to Spanish, they do not need to be translated to Spanish. Usually a source text in Spanish will use these acronyms in English, and they should be kept in English in the translation. In the case that you come across an acronym that is not obvious, you can spell out what each of the initials stands for in parentheses. If you ever have trouble understanding  what an acronym represents, a translator’s note may be needed. In addition, U.S. currency does not need to be translated or changed from dollars into any other currency when translating.

An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word or phrase. Some examples of abbreviations are amt for amount, lb for pound, num for número, and Ud. for usted. Abbreviations should be translated into the target language, but do not need to be kept in the abbreviated form. For example, for a Spanish source text that reads, “Mi num de tel es 555-1212.” an appropriate translation to English would be “My telephone number is 555-1212.” This is another example of message having priority over form and the most important goal of translation being communicating the message of the source text as clearly and completely as possible.