7.4 Conclusion

In this lesson we’ve explored how words are used together both in collocational patterning or tendencies and in idioms and fixed expressions. We also took a look at conjunctions and connecting phrases, which are fixed expressions that help to organize and connect words and thoughts to one another. We’ve offered numerous resource lists with many examples, but these lists are by no means exhaustive. They are meant to serve you as tools as you translate, and as a starting point for you to continue building your own translation resources.

The most important point to keep in mind is that maxim we discussed in Lesson One: message has priority over form. While we cannot always translate the same words used in the ST into the the TL, we can choose different words that will produce an equivalent effect. By increasing our awareness that words aren’t always used together in the same way in English and Spanish, we become more analytical as we examine our target texts for evidence of word collocations that do not sound natural. Likewise, as we are able to identify idioms and fixed expressions in the ST,  we become more capable of discovering the best equivalent expression in the TL in order to produce a similar effect. Paying attention to these aspects of language will ultimately increase the quality of our translations, rendering them easier to read and more natural-sounding in the target language.