Is Grammar Important?

[the_7th_swan]

So, reading a story where the author used the word 'preposition' several times. Problem? She meant to use 'proposition'. A single letter difference but a meaning apart.

Preposition: A word that tells the author where something is located: under, by, in, beside, on. I parked my car under a tree.
Proposition: A suggestion, proposal or offer. I have a

Comments

[ferneberga]

You sure, you don't translate on the side? LOL
Joking apart, everything you mention in your post is the bane of any and every translator.
Once of the worst things, is that we often get badly written original texts and are then expected to produce correct translations!!
This summer I was given the web site to translate of a lift manufacturer-installer. Frankly, I dread to think what Spanish speakers (with a certain level of education) must feel at reading the original. Whoever wrote the texts, clearly didn't know what the spellchecker was for, because the text was replete with spelling errors not to mention serious errors of semantics and syntaxis, zero consistency in technical terminology, etc., etc.
When I queried some of their technical terms, they took umbrage as their meanings were obvious!!
Thank goodness for Google when requiring an image of a standard safety harness, because the Spanish explanation of how to put it on and its purpose were gobbledygook at best.
The only good thing was I got paid, but really my translation wasn't all that good, although grammatically correct at least, since the original was so poorly written I reckon a 5 year old could have done better *sigh*.
I think you may have gathered by now I have a fixation regarding grammar and everything related thereto.
Talk to you again.

[the_7th_swan]

Yeah, that sort of job would slowly drive me mad. I'd probably take to carring around a two-by-four so I could bash people over the head if they annoyed me too much! :P