Translation in Spanish:
The answer is often right in front of us

Translation in Spanish or any other language is full of issues that we as translators have to deal with. A lot of times, it can be hard to come up with these answers. Here's what happened to me the other day while working that kind of made me realize that I needed to change my approach a little.

It's not everyday that I get one of those "ah-hah" moments while working, but the other day something happened that made me stop my work for a minute.

I had been working on a translation throughout the day and was finally getting to where I could wrap it up. However, as I was getting to the end, I ran across a term that I was all of a sudden at a loss on how to translate.

I was stumped and the more I thought about it, the more elusive the translation seemed to be. I checked through all my translation resources, got online at my favorite online Spanish translator forum, and was still drawing a blank.

It finally got to the point where I needed to seek some outside help so I got in touch with a friend of mine and told him my dilema. I showed him the original (the source) and he looked at it for probably no longer than 15 seconds before he told me the correct translation.

I was a little stunned. Here I had been struggling for the right answer for a couple of hours and wasn't coming up with anything, yet he had found the solution because it was so obvious. I had essentialy ignored what was right in front of me the whole time and was instead looking for a more complicated solution when I didn't even need to.

So what does that mean for us as translators?
Well, as translators, we often have so much stuff to worry about and when we run into difficulties, we spend too much trying to come up with complicated solutions when the answer is right in front of us all along.

Whether it's trying to find new clients, getting paid, finding new contacts, or even trying to find that perfect translation, stepping away for a moment and then looking at the simple solution that is right in front of us is often the best way to go. When I've been working on my translation in Spanish or any aspect of my translation business, following this method has definitely helped me keep everything under control.