Jun 06, 2018 - 04:59 AM
Because Yoda we are not! ;-) If you ever get a document translated or if you are ever asked to translate a document, you are not going to provide a word-by-word, literal translation, because that is not a true translation and it will not provide an accurate meaning to the customer. The same way that we code-switch in English to fit the understanding and needs of our audience, so is it appropriate and necessary to provide the appropriate meaning when learning a new language. Even if you were only provided literal translations, you would still have to reorganize it in your head in order to fit a lifetime of language expectations. Also, take languages like Spanish where pronouns are often omitted and the verbs are crucial to the meaning. Literal translations without filling in the context between the lines would lead to incorrect translations. Ex: "Me escribió ayer" would literally be "me wrote yesterday," so I wrote something yesterday? Wrong. "He/She wrote to me yesterday." Think of the foreign language as the start and the tailored English translation as the finish. The process of re-organizing and re-phrasing to fit our English paradigm is the practice we need in order to be able to quickly and easily understand native speakers when we encounter them. We aren't experts (yet), so providing the "finish line" translations allows us to do the re-organizing now while we still have experts to tell us right from wrong.
