Many teachers and other well – educated individuals shun the job of translating words from English to Filipino because of intailing difficulty.

          The translation of English sentences to Filipino or Tagalog is easy for simply situations considering the basic and commonly used words.

          The problem starts when you are dealing with technical words found in Science , business and some scholarly written materials.

           In business and economics for example, how can you translate the ”drawee bank” to the term that is easily understood by the lay man. In legal matters , translators find it difficult to find exact tagalong phrase for “writ of injunction” or “motion for reconsideration”.

      According to many newspaper and book editors , a translator should read first and understand the whole sentence or paragraph and translate them into simpler idea anyone could easily understand without veering away from the original idea.

         I remember a business who called his friends in the academic to help him translate English words to Tagalog. His friends politely declined because according to them they were “busy” with their own  business.

        The rule of thumb in translation is try to understand first and say it in your own language  but not divert from the real message of the author.

By: Alina P. Lacson | Teacher II | St. Francis II Elementary School | Limay , Bataan