When you are doing a translation from English
to French, are you consciously aware of what you are doing?
Or is it all subconscious? You can only evaluate your work
if you understand what is actually going on.
These are some of the stages in the process that is actually taking place when you are working on your translation from English to French.
Engaging
- Approach the passage. Try to find some way, however slight, in which the subject matter touches on your life.
- The brief. Spend time finding out as much as possible about what it’s for, who will be reading the finished translation, the nature of the client’s business, in what form the translation is to be delivered. Sometimes it may even be necessary to “invent” a brief if adequate instructions aren’t there.
- Analyse. Identify the style, and the language level – formal, informal, slang, etc. How culturally specific is the content?
- Context. If possible, look for background material relevant to the subject matter. This will help to arrive at an in-depth understanding of the material to be worked on.
Internalising
Most pieces of work you are given for translation from English to French contain some information that is familiar to you, and some that is new. You need to integrate the new information into your existing knowledge-base, so as to make it a coherent whole.
When you have done this you will find yourself internalising the sense. That is, abstracting the sense or meaning of the text completely from the forms – the words, phrases and sentences – in which it is contained. This helps you to remember that you are not translating the forms, but the sense. To put it another way, you are getting below the surface to the underlying message. The more experienced a translator you are, the better you are able to free the sense of the text completely from the forms of the source language.
Handing over
It’s quite easy to feel possessive about a translation! Alternatively it’s tempting to feel that it isn’t as perfect as you would like. But of course, this is the final stage in the process, of translation from English to French and it’s as essential as the other stages. The translation is no use to anyone until it’s been handed over!
So how can we get ourselves to this point? Some things that can help are:
- Look back at the brief. If you got all the information you needed at the beginning, you should be able to remind yourself what the translation is wanted for.
- Analyse reasons for your reluctance. Is it brought about by over-identification which makes you feel possessive of “your” piece of work? Or lack of confidence. Identifying the underlying cause may help you deal with it and move on.
You are almost certainly not conscious of the stages of this process of translation from English to French. But being able to analyse the process into stages helps you to evaluate your work and be clear what is going on. What we need to realise is that at each of these stages there are constant decisions being made and constant questions being asked.
At the initial stage, you are making decisions about context, how long to spend reading, when to start, whether to make a draft and how many drafts to make, etc.
At the stage of actual translation from English to French you have an immense number of decisions to make: choice of word or phrase, how much time to spend on which bit, whether or not to rephrase. And of course in the final stage there is the decision about when it is finished, and when to hand over.
At the same time, you are constantly asking questions: What is this document about? What is the message? Who is the intended reader? These questions may not reach the surface of your conscious mind – but they are going on all the time.
But probably the question you are asking yourself
the most is: How well am I doing this translation from English
to French? How well am I getting the message across?
As you learn to be more conscious of these stages in the process
of your translation, you will be able to answer these questions
better, and be more satisfied with your work .
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