Poll: How do you prefer to exercise your writing skills in your target language (TL)? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "How do you prefer to exercise your writing skills in your target language (TL)?".
View the poll results »
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I have been exercising my writing skills by... translating! There is only one method to polish your writing skills: keep writing and translation must be one of the best ways there is to improve your writing skills because it makes you look closely at all the specificities of the language and its writing conventions. Though I like reading books and magazines, in my case ‘reading widely’ means mostly reading the documents I’m translating. The more I translate, the more I learn from it, the m... See more I have been exercising my writing skills by... translating! There is only one method to polish your writing skills: keep writing and translation must be one of the best ways there is to improve your writing skills because it makes you look closely at all the specificities of the language and its writing conventions. Though I like reading books and magazines, in my case ‘reading widely’ means mostly reading the documents I’m translating. The more I translate, the more I learn from it, the more I improve my writing skills. The work itself is a good learning tool…. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Exercise writing skills by ... writing | Jul 10, 2021 |
Teresa Borges wrote:
I have been exercising my writing skills by... translating! There is only one method to polish your writing skills: keep writing and translation must be one of the best ways there is to improve your writing skills because it makes you look closely at all the specificities of the language and its writing conventions.
Teresa has it exactly right. The only way to exercise writing skills is by writing. So answers that refer to reading are simply wrong. Reading is a different skill. Reading may help you improve your writing, but it is not a way to "exercise your writing skills". Likewise, listening to music will not improve your singing voice. Listening to classical guitar will not improve your guitar playing. Nor will reading books about music.
The only way to exercise writing skills is by writing. I used to do a lot of original writing, which is probably the best way of exercising writing skills, but translation (and its cousin, substantive editing) comes a close second.
I cannot understand why this was not among the proposed answers.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 01:33
Spanish to English
+ ...
I translate into my native language (L1). And that is where/how I exercise my skills.
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Besides translation itself, a combination of reading, conversing, and writing in my native language. I am also writing a book about writing. I'm only not thinking about writing when I'm asleep, and even then I dream about it.
| | | | Michael Harris 
Germany
Local time: 01:33
Member (2006)
German to English
| Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 02:33
Member
English to Turkish
| Odd question | Jul 10, 2021 |
Translation naturally improves one's writing skills (perhaps at the expense of one's speaking skills).
But we, non-native English speakers, are mostly 'forced' to communicate (write) in our source language (as I'm doing right now). I guess we're in a position to use our source language more frequently than our native languages. So for us, it would make more sense to exercise writing skills in the source language than the other way around. Btw sorry about making this 'us' vs. 'them'. But la... See more Translation naturally improves one's writing skills (perhaps at the expense of one's speaking skills).
But we, non-native English speakers, are mostly 'forced' to communicate (write) in our source language (as I'm doing right now). I guess we're in a position to use our source language more frequently than our native languages. So for us, it would make more sense to exercise writing skills in the source language than the other way around. Btw sorry about making this 'us' vs. 'them'. But lately these poll questions appear to assume everybody here is a native English speaker.
Besides, why would you want to exercise your writing skills in your native language unless you're somebody like Mervyn Henderson or doing transcreation/marketing type of work? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:33
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| My answer: by living in the target language | Jul 10, 2021 |
Being in London and having English as my target language gives me a big advantage when I'm translating, because I'm surrounded by written and spoken English, in every imaginable situation. For example: after watching something on TV - it could be anything, in British or American English - or simply after having had a telephone conversation in English with someone - anyone - I may sit down to work on a translation, to find that my English flows much more smoothly and stylishly, and is perfectly u... See more Being in London and having English as my target language gives me a big advantage when I'm translating, because I'm surrounded by written and spoken English, in every imaginable situation. For example: after watching something on TV - it could be anything, in British or American English - or simply after having had a telephone conversation in English with someone - anyone - I may sit down to work on a translation, to find that my English flows much more smoothly and stylishly, and is perfectly up to date (in a world in which languages are constantly evolving on a daily basis).
[Edited at 2021-07-10 10:12 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Erik Matson
Thailand
Local time: 06:33
English to Norwegian
+ ...
I have never felt the need to exercise my writing skills in my target language because they were already very strong at high school graduation. As far as "exercise", practice, or improvement goes, just doing my job (translating) is plenty.
| | | | Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 20:33
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Are you kidding? | Jul 11, 2021 |
We do that every day, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep. What else do you need?
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