Poll: Do you catch yourself paraphrasing sentences when reading a text in your source language(s)?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
May 27, 2018

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you catch yourself paraphrasing sentences when reading a text in your source language(s)?".

This poll was originally submitted by Andrzej Niewiarowski. View the poll results »



 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 14:10
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Other May 27, 2018

What do you mean reading for pleasure or professionally?

Supposing you mean reading for pleasure, I don’t do it (consciously) if I'm just too interested in what I'm reading, but if I happen to have a lapse of attention or when the text is hard to understand I start immediately either paraphrasing or translating.

Supposing you mean professionally, I do it all the time: in order to understand something I paraphrase it mentally and then start translating.


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 15:10
Spanish to English
+ ...
Other May 27, 2018

Probably, yes.

 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 15:10
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Definitely! May 27, 2018

I do it deliberately.

If a source text is badly written, I may rephrase sections, at least in my head, before translating it.

If it comes up in the newspaper or a text I am not translating, it is a sport in our household to take articles apart and discuss what people ought to have written… Sort out the mixed metaphors and make neat, rhetorical sentences out of long, rambling tirades...
My husband and I are ´old school´, and have the privilege of leisure to do
... See more
I do it deliberately.

If a source text is badly written, I may rephrase sections, at least in my head, before translating it.

If it comes up in the newspaper or a text I am not translating, it is a sport in our household to take articles apart and discuss what people ought to have written… Sort out the mixed metaphors and make neat, rhetorical sentences out of long, rambling tirades...
My husband and I are ´old school´, and have the privilege of leisure to do that kind of thing.

We know journalists have to get their story in before deadline, and we have both seen how much our own writings can be improved by proofreading once more after a night's sleep.
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 11:10
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Only when it is a translation May 27, 2018

When it's a not-so-good translation, either EN > PT or PT > EN, I involuntarily back-translate, and translate it again in my way.

This whole mental process is so quick that, when I realize I've done it, it's already too late to stop me from doing it.


 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 07:10
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
All the time! May 27, 2018

I collect examples of different kinds of structures that I come across when I'm reading in both my source and target languages. Decades later, I"m still trying to prove the "hypothesis" in my graduate thesis.

 
Panagiota Prokopi (X)
Panagiota Prokopi (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:10
English to Greek
Legal texts or technical May 27, 2018

With legal texts, philosophical, scientific, etc paraphrasing happens sometime for better understanding. If other words fit to describe a situation it helps for the reprentation of it.

 
Laura Nagle (X)
Laura Nagle (X)  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 10:10
French to English
+ ...
Yes, often May 27, 2018

I assumed the question referred to reading for pleasure, and my answer would be similar to Teresa's. If I'm really able to relax and am engrossed in what I'm reading, then I can read in my source languages for pleasure without my "translator brain" getting in the way and analyzing everything. Otherwise, though, even if I'm just reading the news, I'll stop every now and then when I reach an interesting turn of phrase and think about how I might rework it.

[quote]Teresa Borges wrote:

What do you mean reading for pleasure or professionally?

Supposing you mean reading for pleasure, I don’t do it (consciously) if I'm just too interested in what I'm reading, but if I happen to have a lapse of attention or when the text is hard to understand I start immediately either paraphrasing or translating.


 


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Poll: Do you catch yourself paraphrasing sentences when reading a text in your source language(s)?






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