The Most Common Mistakes in English-Macedonian Translations

This paper discusses the art of translation from English language into Macedonian language, precisely the difficulty that Macedonian translator might face if not aware of the complexity and importance of the process of translation. This unawareness is the leading reason for many common mistakes in English-Macedonian translation. At the very beginning I would like to pay attention on attitudes that linguists have about the process of translation. As Nida defines, translation consists of providing, in the receptor language, the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. In the popular mind, a translator is someone who has a good knowledge of both the language he/she translates from and the language he/she translates into. In other words, as long as a translator knows all the equivalents for the words in the text to be translated, there is no question about the ability of said person to produce a good, reliable translation. The concept in which the language is expressed needs to be understood before it can be translated into the targeted language appropriately. Some people still have the misconception that translation simple means converting words from the source content into the equivalent of the targeted language. In English translation, the translator is not merely dealing with the words, they are also considering the cultural aspect, the socio-political situation and the wording used by the source. This is because when most words are translated literally, it would make no sense in English translation or otherwise. English translation is a very complicated process wherein a lot of factors need to be considered. Baker notes that some of these factors may be strictly linguistic, like collocations and idioms, whereas other factors may be extra-linguistic like the pragmatic equivalence. Having in mind all the above mentioned, Macedonian translators are facing with situations where they

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