Translation Chapter 1 of Venuti's The Translator's Invisibility is about why the goal of translation is to be "invisible." The translated text should be as close to the original as possible. In Chapter 1, the author explains the term invisibility and why it applies to the translator's work. The goal is to be faithful to the original author. There should be no evidence that the translator has taken liberties to put something in his or her own words because it sounds good. As Venuti puts it, there should be "the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities" that would prevent a faithful rendition of the original (1). The translator's role is to transform a text from one language to another without losing anything or adding anything. The translator must therefore grasp exactly what the original author was trying to say, and render that fluently into a modern and easily accessible version of the original. A good translation is a text that stands alone and feels like an original, rather than...
Good translations flow and have textual integrity. Poor translations are ones that avoid using jargon, archaic language, or too many foreign words. The best way to achieve a smooth and effective translated text is to get into the mind of the original writer, and convey exactly what he or she was saying -- in the same way that it is more effective to "think" in a foreign language than it is to translate a sentence word for word. Idioms and other obstacles to a smooth translation should be replaced by finding the core meaning. For example, there is a dish of food called "ropa vieja," which translates literally to English from Spanish as "old clothes." A good translator describes the dish as being shredded meat; a bad translator calls it "old clothes."Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
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