5.3 Conclusion

After studying how to translate the past tenses from Spanish to English, we’re able to understand on a deeper level that our task in translating is to transfer the message, and not the form, of the source text into the target language. We can see that there are occasions when a verb may be used in one tense in the source language, yet require another in the target language. Here, we’ve examined how some verbs change their meaning when used in the preterite tense, how the imperfect tense is used in many situations which may be translated to English in various verb tenses, the way time expressions with hacer may be used in the past tense, and how prepositions sometimes function differently in Spanish and English. We’ve acquired more analytical skills to be able to distinguish between different usages and meanings of verbs in Spanish and to find the most satisfactory equivalent in English. Now, our task is to apply this knowledge in all of our translations, and to ensure that the target text is written with correct grammar and is expressed naturally in the target language.