Some Common Misconceptions about Translation and Translators (from "The Translator's Handbook", by Morry Sofer)

1. Anyone with two years of high school language (or anyone who lived in another country for 3 years during early childhood) can translate.

2. There's no difference between translation, transcription, and transliteration.

3. A good translator doesn't need any reference literature.

4. Translators will soon be replaced by computers.

5. Translators don't need to know how to spell, since they can use the spell checker on their computer.

6. A good translator gets it right the first time, without any editing or proof reading.

7. Good translators are a dime a dozen.

8. If you can type in a foreign language then you are an accomplished translator.

9. Translators can translate both ways just as easily.

10. A 100-page technical manual that took four months and three persons to write can be translated into another language by one translator in two days.

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