How does a translator keep up on current usage, idioms?
Well, I live in Spain so I mostly do it by osmosis but, of course, a lot of research goes into each translation. The worst is when you’ve come up with a great translation for a certain word and then check to find that the word didn’t become popular until after the historical period the book takes place in, and you can’t use it. I became a translator since the Internet became omnipresent, and I can’t imagine not having it as a tool. Why do you not translate certain words or phrases? We realize some things, or names, are simply untranslatable, and the reader either picks it up from inference or has to let it go. We’re curious about the process of selection. There is this idea that some language teachers impart that you should read a book in a foreign language with a dictionary by your side, but what that seems to lead to is you putting the book down the first chance you get and not picking it up again, because reading has a flow to it that transcends each individual word. For example, I
