The translator is a professional with the ability to take a text in a source language and change it into a new language, making it understandable to the speakers of this target language.But the role of a translator goes beyond that. They have to understand in an exceptional way the document he/she is translating because they are different situations where a translator can get in trouble translating a document into a different language; for example, when they translate a text word for word. This may generate serious mistakes in the translations in almost every language.

An example:

If we have the sentence in Spanish “El perro blanco está feliz”, which means “The white dog is happy” and we want to translate it into English we have to analyze it very well.

The sentence in Spanish word for word is: El which means the; Perro which means dog, blanco which means white, está which means is, and feliz which means happy.

So, if we translate this sentence word for word into English it will be: The dog white is happy. The order of words in Spanish and English is a little bit different so we have to be careful because the differences could be so much bigger between different languages.

Other thing that a translator must consider is the culture of the target language and compare it with the text he/she has to translate into that language. That’s very important because sometimes words which are very similar or equivalents between languages are used in different ways or levels in both languages

For example,in the Portuguese sentence, Eu me chamo João e tu? Which means My name is João and you? The “tu” in Portuguese means “you”. If we want to translate that into English is not a problem but what if we try to translate into French?

The translation in French is:

Je m’appelle João et tu?That “tu” will be a problem in French. Why? Because “tu” is the informal way to use “you”. In Portuguese is also the informal way to use “you” but in the Portuguese and Brazilian societies is more accepted the “tu” where you meet someone new than in French.

It will not be polite if you say it in French because the “tu” form of “you” is just used with friends and family members who are younger than you.

The correct way to translate that sentence into French would be: Je m’appelle João et vous? The “Vous” form of “you” is the formal way to use it. It would be correct because you are meeting new people and you have to be polite and respectful with him/her.

The translator also has to know about what kind of text he/she is translating. It’s not the same translate a law text, that a children’s tale. So, they have to know exactly how to transmit the message in the precise way the writer of the original text wanted it to be transmitted.

As you can see the translator has to solve different problems when he is translating a text. At the end a translation work is like different pieces in a puzzle that the translator has to join together to have a translation with the best quality.