Interesting thread indeed and specially reading all the opinions which at the end bring us together since we share mostly all of them.
I have also something to add, very much based in my own experience.
My former boss was from X but he knew English and a little bit of Spanish which made him think he could translate. He gives me a plain text about a country profile to translate (Eng-Sp) and when he read the result, he asked me why I changed the original so much!!!???
He did not want me to say "el país tiene una extensión territorial de...", instead, he wanted me to say "el país tiene un largo de..." and "ejecutar un instrumento"??? No way, it had to be "tocar un instrumento" because "ejecutar" means to kill. (I worked as an Intl. Sales Rep for 8 years for a record label.) In this case, "tocar un instrumento" is not wrong but if you can use a more formal word for that...The examples would be endless and you would be more and more surprised!
And very well, I had to change the whole text and make it look so ridiculous that I was glad I did not have to put my name at the end!!! Just to please him! This is something we must take into account too...the customer. I hope though, that there are not many people like this and the truth is that this has been an only one experience.
Apart from that, I think that if we feel that the reader will not understand a certain word because it's too regional, we either look for the most approximate translation or leave it like that and then add a foot note. But I would not go on an explanation and changing the original. We are translators, not editors.
And yes, we have to investigate, get to know what we are going to translate, but we do not have to add the result of our investigation to the text. So, once we understand, we translate into the target language using our knowledge in a way that the reader will understand too without going too far from the original. Otherwise, it will be our own text, not a translation of the original.
I also love literary texts cause I love to be creative and this type of texts give us certain freedom to translate. The technical ones are a different story. As Hebe said the best policy is to be as faithful as possible. One little change in a word can change the whole meaning of the text.
This could be dangerous in a political text. I had to translate a letter from a high official once and there was this word which I could not understand within the context and I spent a while trying to figure it out. I even asked for other colleagues opinion. Just that word could change the meaning of the entire letter...and you can't just go beat around the bushes with that, many things at stake!
So, we always have to adjust to the situation, the type of text, the context, the regional aspects, etc.
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[Have a nice day!!!
♥ Sandra T ♥
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