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Don’t overuse connectors when translating into English

One of things that can make an English translation look like an English translation is overuse of connectors, or linking expressions, between sentences. Such expressions are much more common in Romance-language texts than they are in English. Here is an example from a text I was working on this morning, used with the author’s permission.

Hay quien afirma que la traducción automática es simplemente una herramienta más de traducción. Otros, en cambio, defienden que estamos ante un cambio de paradigma en la profesión. En cualquier caso, los defensores de ambas concepciones de la traducción automática la utilizan con reticencias.

I have marked the two connectors in bold. My first draft read as follows:

Some say that machine translation is just another translation tool. Others, meanwhile, argue that it represents a paradigm shift in the profession. However, neither view is expressed without reservations.

When revising my translation, I was uncomfortable with the result, which didn’t seem to flow well. My solution was to remove the adverb “meanwhile”, which is unnecessary in English, since the words “some” and “others” already provide the necessary contrast in English. I also moved the position of “however” away from the beginning of the sentence, which is another useful technique to make English translations sound more authentic.

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