The Beginning Translator's Workbook: or the ABCs of French to English Translation

This workbook provides methodology and practice for beginning translators with a solid proficiency in French, addressing common and major pitfalls such as delineation of "translation units," word polysemy, false cognates, structural and cultural obstacles, and translation devices. It offers chapter-by-chapter explanations of strategies used by professional translators, practice exercises, and a global application of principles. Clarifications, extra exercises, and updated content have been added for the second edition, with class support for instructors provided in the form of a PDF document and keys to all exercises.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 294 pages
Publication date: 15 September 2023
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

This workbook is designed for beginning translators with a solid proficiency in French and provides a comprehensive approach to the problems of translation. It takes a linguistic approach to the challenges of translation, addressing common and major pitfalls such as delineation of "translation units," word polysemy, false cognates, structural and cultural obstacles to literal translation. The book offers chapter-by-chapter explanations of the various strategies used by professional translators to counter these problems, including transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation. Each chapter concludes with a variety of practice exercises focusing on one specific problem.

The second part of the book is a global application of all the principles taught in the first part and guides the student step-by-step through the actual translation of a choice of literary (prose, poetry, and plays) and non-literary excerpts. Features include:

Each problem in translation is given a specific chapter.
Each chapter ends with practice exercises for that specific problem in translation.
Models of literary and non-literary translation are given to guide the student towards what to aim for in translation.
A list of free online resources for translation in specific fields, such as business, medicine, the law, computer science, science and technology, slang and idiomatic expressions, is provided at the end of the book.
A list of books on translation studies is provided at the end.

For this second edition, clarifications have been provided in the chapters on the theory of translation that deal with the various strategies used in translation in order to make those strategies more understandable. Furthermore, extra exercises to practice each strategy have been added.

Weight: 417g
Dimension: 224 x 154 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781538182321
Edition number: Second Edition