Translation between two languages, for example from English to Spanish, requires a deep knowledge of the destination language. Therefore, we start with a great advantage and it is that we will feel comfortable writing in our native language.

Translation in this context (learning) does not look for the creation of a master piece with the goal that the reader may appreciate the author’s intention in his native language; the search is like looking with a magnifying glass to a small part of what we are observing (a text).

This magnifying glass look that allows you to see details, is very useful. But it’s also an intense look which is better in small quantities. If we only look at the landscape with a magnifying glass we will miss the bigger picture. The bigger picture allows you to give more meaning to the details. And vice versa.

Having said that, let’s see some practical tips to approach a translation.

1. Read the entire paragraph first.
2. Take the sentence as the reference unit, not each word.
3. If you understand the meaning of the sentence, try to translate that meaning without paying too much attention to the words, in the beginning.
4. Then, do start to stop in each word and use a dictionary for the words that you do not feel sure about the meaning.
5. Read again the sentence and verify that you have made the best that you can according to your posibilites.
6. Start slowly to identify patterns (grammatical structures), for example the relative position between noun and adjective.
7. Once you have finished, you might find it a bit unnatural. At this point, you can make a new version, one that sounds more familiar, just by looking at your text and without looking at the original text.
8. As a bonus, I invite you to take this text that you created and translate it back to English; again, without looking at the original text.
9. Have fun comparing both texts in English!!!

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