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Being human in the translation industry

Are you a human translator? or human at least? GREAT! I thought it was another search engine browsing through my blog... 

This post is to be shared with humans and if you are a translator, that's even better because you will understand what I am talking about. 

Why is it important to be a human translator? 

Wow... that's one reason: million of answers coming to your head... you are creative, resourceful, you can answer one simple question within seconds, you have brains. 

Another important reason is that you have feelings...(I hope you do). 

And why are feelings important in translation? 

Because we are communicating with people. Communication can trigger feelings.

For instance, while you are reading this blog, you may feel bored, you may feel I am talking nonesense, or you may actually feel I have a point. 

My intention is to entertain you and share my feelings about human translation with you. That's how communication is about feelings; translation is about communication, and, therefore, about feelings as well. 

If I ask you to translate this blog into Spanish, you will need to feel my intention for entertaining my readers and you will need to translate that feeling into Spanish. See? ¿Si? 

Translation is not only about reproducing a text written in one language into another language, it's about feeling the words of the source language and translating that feeling into the target. 

Then, if your translation is effective, the feelings of the target readers will be the feelings that the original writter tried to trigger in their readers. 

There are many other reasons why it is important to be human translators and that's a topic to be continued on future posts. 

As humans you may want to provide feedback about some points of this blog and I'll be honored to hear your comments. 

You may also point out my mistakes... Just remember I am a translator but I am human...To err is human, to forgive divine...

Jaquelina
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