Thread: Translation Guidelines

I was wondering if anyone knows of online or book resources that give guidelines or helpful tips for translating from Russian into English. I'm trying my hand at translating some Russian literature and can't find help by googling, as I get free translation services everywhere. My main problem is deciding how true to the text I must be and I wanted to see the precedent for it among translators. I figured if they teach courses on this, there must be something helpful online, as well. Thanks!

My main problem is deciding how true to the text I must be and I wanted to see the precedent for it among translators.

It's a universal problem, and every translator has his or her own opinion on the matter. Check this book on literary translation, it has some nice tips: Literary translation: a practical guide - Clifford E. Landers - Google Книги

If you want to see how other Ru-En translators coped, just compare any book translated from Russian and an original bookn (in most cases it can be easily downloaded from Russian free books sites).

Good luck!

I think that it is better to make the text readable than to translate every word accurately.
The text must sound natural in the new language, not too stilted and must be relatively easy to read.
There are an amazing amount of terrible translations out there, particularly for technical products.
I think the art of translation was at a higher level in the past..

It's better to start translating into your native language than vice-versa. Translation into a foreign language is a much harder task.

It's better to start translating into your native language than vice-versa. Translation into a foreign language is a much harder task.

Yeah, I am. I'm attempting to translate from my foreign Russian into my native English.

Oh, for some reason I thought you were a native Russian speaker. Never mind then.