ESSAY

 In my opinion I can say that all the modalities are really important, and interesting. So it was difficult to me select one of them; however, of all them I just want to choose one. The one I liked the most was translation. The reason of why I chose this modality is because I would like to be a translator but before it, I have to gain as much experience as I can this will help me in my professional career. Since translation is the process to transfer written or spoken source language texts to equivalent written or spoken target language texts. The basic purpose of translation is to reproduce various types of texts, comprising literary, religious, scientific, philosophical texts etc. in another language and thus making them available to wider readers, to a greater number of target audience and to bring the world closer.

Besides, the translator has to make a number of decisions of how to interpret the source text into the target text, the translator uses all resources and apply technical skills to have as a result a good translation in the target language; however, translation is not an easy job. If language is just a classification for a set of general or universal concepts, it will be of course very easy to translate from a source language to a target language. But translation covers not only word for word translation but also many other factors. The concepts of one language may vary completely from those of another. This is because each language articulates or organizes the word in a different way. The bigger the gap between the source language and the target language, the more difficult the process of transfer will be. The discrepancy between the two languages and cultures makes the process of translating a real challenge.

Furthermore; a translator is an agent for transferring messages from one language to another, while preserving the underlying cultural and same ideas and values. So if we want to be good translators we must be creative and have reasonable knowledge from the target language and have good dictionaries, have enough experience about all. In other words we must have the necessary tools to do it. So a good translator should be familiar with the culture, customs, and social settings of the source and target language speakers. She should also be familiar with different registers, styles of speaking, and social stratification of both languages. The act of translating takes place in the socio-cultural context. Therefore, it is important to judge translating activity only within a social context.

At last, it is important to know that it takes much more than a dictionary to be a good translator and translators are not made in one day. To be a good translator requires a considerable investment in both source and target languages. It is one of the most challenging tasks to switch safely and faithfully between two universes of discourse. Just a sophisticated and systematic treatment of translation education can lead to the development of successful translators. But the most arduous part of the journey starts when translation trainees leave their universities.

After knowing all this, something that I would like to translate is about legal services because I think that it would help in my professional career. Also it is the subject in which I want to work and it would be my first experience; I now that translation has its process and I have to be aware of various information-providing sources and learning how to use them. These sources include: different monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the Internet.

The translator should have the ability to write efficiently and correctly in both source and target languages, because this is also important, since it is the main job of a translator. Another important thing is that we should become familiar with different styles of writing and techniques and principles of editing and punctuation in both source and target languages. Editing and punctuation improve the quality and readability of the translation.

One of the most important points to consider in the act of translating is, understanding the value of the source text within the framework of the source-language discourse. To develop this understanding, the translator must be aware of the cultural differences and the various discoursal strategies in the source and target languages. Thus, the hidden structure of the source text should be discovered through the use of various discoursal strategies by the translator.

Knowing and understanding the context the translator will face up some problems like:  trying to find the meaning of some words. I think it is a hard work for a translator. He/she has to look for the correct meaning and until he finds it he will continue with the translation of the text. He has to write and rewrite the text many times until it sounds good. But also it is very important that the text has coherence, and the more experience you have the better translator you will be.

In conclusion, I can say that I will have good experience of this, and I cannot wait to start with my translation. I know that I will face up some problems but nothing difficult to solve, so I will try to do a good work, and use the techniques and method in a correct way in order to have a good translation. Since translation is not easy.