5 Common Mistakes All Untrained Literary Translators Make and How to Avoid Working with a Bad Linguist

5 Common Mistakes All Untrained Literary Translators Make and How to Avoid Working with a Bad Linguist

Translating a book into any language requires much more than speaking a language. It’s a work of skill that calls for a proficient understanding of the source language, deep knowledge of the target language’s grammar, and experience.

In order to achieve this, most qualified literary translators usually get a bachelor’s degree in Translation Studies. During their academic years, not only do they study their language combination in depth as they develop their translation skills, but they also study Literature, Culture, and History, thus gaining a deep, comprehensive understanding of the culture of both languages that goes beyond the mere meaning of words.

When hiring a linguist lacking those carefully gained language skills, the result is a poor translation that will fail to engage readers and will cost authors lots of time and money in multiple good editors to fix.

That’s why hiring the right translator for your books is essential. And for this purpose, we wrote a full-length article with all the essential information you should have to get you started on the right track and avoid unnecessary headaches. You can read Literary Translation: An Overview here.

Today, however, we’ll focus on the most common mistakes most untrained translators make to help you stay away from unscrupulous bilingual speakers selling language services and save you lots of headaches.

Bear in mind, our knowledge is on the Spanish market and this article will therefore focus on Spanish grammar.

1. Poor Command of the Source Language - Big Red Flag!

When dealing with a potential translator, writers often notice the linguist struggles to communicate in English (either speaking or writing). However, some authors mistakenly believe a good translator has excellent skills in the target language (their mother tongue) and it’s okay not to be fluent in English because it’s not their mother tongue.

Psst! A trained, professional literary translator spent years at university studying English and Spanish (or any target language) grammar, so if you’re dealing with a linguist who lacks good command of the source language, don’t waste any time and just run away.

Plus, how could someone who struggles to communicate in English fully understand your book and rewrite it in Spanish?

2. Wrong Translation of Idioms

Each language has its own idioms. Some translate perfectly well, others have a more natural idiom in the target language, and others simply don’t translate and need a little skill from the translator to be reproduced.

Any unskilled translator typically struggles to spot literary devices in a text. Not being too familiar with the source language (English) means they’ll most likely translate these devices word by word (creating a literal translation). In turn, readers will have trouble understanding these ‘foreign’ idioms that make little to no sense to them and will also fail to engage with a story that lacks an engaging and fluid narrative.

3. Lack of Reasearch

Most untrained translators don’t know the importance of research, for they’re too focused on writing the English words (source text) in Spanish (target text). However, this is one of the first skills you learn to develop in Translation Studies—question everything, research all.

As a result, the translated text is full of mistakes and inconsistencies that confuse and upset readers.

Research is also key in your marketing campaigns. A literal translation of keywords might result in Spanish keywords no one ever uses, which will undoubtedly cause your books to sink in the ranks and make your ads and campaigns lose more money than the profit they might turn.

Lastly, research is vital when translating your book titles and series titles (a process in which both author and translator should be deeply involved). But this is a topic we will be discussing soon in another article.

Research is one of the first skills translators learn to develop.
It is key in your marketing campaigns and vital when it comes to translating book titles and series titles.

4. Literal Translation of Literary Devices, such as Personifications

As stated earlier, a trained literary translator spent years studying English and Spanish Literature and knows how to identify the literary devices each language uses and how to translate them so that the target text flows naturally.

Make no mistake—unfortunately, some things will get lost in translation. A good translator will go to great lengths to make sure the translation conveys all the meanings in your book.

Unable to detect these language subtleties, an untrained translator will closely focus on the words and end up creating a weird text in an attempt to reproduce every single word, metaphor, and idiom.

As a result, whereas English literature authors use a lot of personification, in Spanish, for instance, things don’t do things. Instead, people carry out actions. And when a personification is present in a text in Spanish, it’s to bring focus to a particular action or event. This means the translation process requires a trained linguist to restructure a sentence (or multiple sentences and paragraphs throughout the book) to create a text that flows naturally in the target language.

5. Simplification - or Stealing Meaning from your Text

The English language is rich in verbs we use to clearly describe ways of speaking, talking, looking, moving, behaving, etc.

Sometimes, translating these verbs into Spanish can prove challenging, as there might not always be one word to accurately convey the same meaning, and translators might need to adopt a more descriptive approach.

A widespread mistake unskilled translators tend to make is what can be described as “stealing meaning from your text”, for they struggle to find an exact term in the source language and they simplify it. So, regardless of whether your character is gazing, staring, peering, glancing or scrutinizing, in Spanish, they’ll simply be “looking” (or “mirando”).

If your translator does this with every word that poses a conflict, the result will be a plain, monotonous text that fails to communicate your characters’ feelings, emotions, and complexities and will succeed at making readers angry at the repetitive vocabulary used throughout the book.

Final thoughts

No doubt, finding the right translator when you don’t speak the target language is not easy, and hiring a linguist who charges lower fees might sound tempting.

However, these lower fees might come at a high cost—it might cost you tons of money in editors’ fees to fix the translation or even paying a new translation altogether to save you at least a dozen headaches.

Or, if it’s too late when you realise the kind of translator you’ve been working with, it might cost you an entire new audience that will never get anywhere near your books again.

Hopefully, this article will help you sharpen your criteria and easily spot red flags to avoid working with unqualified translators.