You're navigating the world of translation. How can you conquer the most challenging languages?

Focus on languages that are in high demand or have a significant number of speakers. Languages with complex grammar, or significant cultural differences are challenging but rewarding.

Basics are more than just language basics. Each language has its own unique basics that are important later on. For example, Japanese has a set of giving and receiving verbs that are necessary for making literal statements (I got, she was given, etc.) and for making requests and other phrases. Getting a sense of the unique basics of a language is crucial. They’ll play a part later on in your development, and they aren’t always obvious.

Learn about the linguistic structure of the target language, including syntax, morphology, phonetics, and semantics. Understand language families and how different languages are related.

Cultural context is important, but focusing on it too much can cause you problems. Particularly for people who start their language learning with a pre-existing interest in the associated culture. There’s a balancing act that comes with this, because not everything culture related that you learn will affect your language learning; and not everything at your current stage of language learning will be affected that much by culture. It is a good way to pick up words and such that not every learner of the language might now.

For translators this is the first real major hurdle. This is where you start having to match your learned language and your skills there, with your skills in your native language. Keeping the two as closely matched as you can will be a lifelong challenge. This is also where cultural elements really come into play for everyone learning the language.

Regularly translate various types of texts to improve accuracy and speed. Take on diverse projects to expand your experience and adaptability.

It’s important to keep in mind that practicing with your language, with your language skills and with your translation skills are three different things. How you practice for one isn’t necessarily going to be applicable to the others. If you practice your translation skills, for example, you might end up developing a lexicon in your learned language that isn’t necessarily useful in your regular life.

Technology comes with some pitfalls, especially these days where computers are common place. Just because technology can be helpful doesn’t mean it always will be. Use your judgement. Try different things, but if a program or app or something isn’t actually helping then get rid of it. I don’t use CAT Tools because they don’t offer me anything actually useful to my work.

Like with technology, there are pitfalls here. There is a time investment involved in a lot of the suggested ways of seeking feedback. Which might not always be time spent well. If you have a mentor or a regular proofreader, maintain a good relationship with them. Otherwise, make sure you are honest with yourself about what you’re getting from workshops and forums etc.

There are generally four things you have to balance here: translation skills, native language skills, foreign language skills, and language related skills. The first is obvious. The next two are more directly your capabilities in those languages, essentially how good you are in them in terms of language knowledge, etc. The last is more general. How well you can write, reason, argue, debate, tell stories, etc. regardless of the language you are doing it in. Translation skills are more closely related to these skills than they are to native and foreign language skills. So, it’s best to constantly be working on these skills because they will have the greatest impact on your output as a translator.