Pilar Dueñas (translator)

(11)

Essentia Translations
Traduttore Curatore

I suppose I have loved translating ever since I learned to read. I would cut out ingredients lists on food packages so that I could learn how to say "flour" in five languages.

​Five years or so later, I spent my summer holiday reading my sisters' French school book. I taught myself English, Italian, German and Greek, and I'm still as passionate about languages as I was thirty years ago.

​But speaking a foreign language doesn't make you a translator. 

​First of all, you need to know a bit of everything, and have a boundless curiosity about what you don't know, even arid subjects like law. Aside from an in-depth knowledge of both languages, you need to be able to identify references to History, Science, Politics, etc., that are not always apparent, and convey them in a way that is appropriate for the intended audience. You also need to understand your subject, or you are in deep water indeed.

​Further, you need to be a good writer, and that's a bit like having a knack for music: you can improve with practice, but you'll probably never be a Mozart.

​And for me, an elite translator needs to have a good dose of intuition and be a compulsive checker; I always assume that there could be an error in the original, so I just check everything.

​

Native language: Spanish
Translates from: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Russian
Translates into: English, Spanish


User links: Website





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