On December 15th, 2012 the Boards of Directors of ATP Moldova organized for the Association members the second workshop devoted to the accuracy of expression in Romanian language. The number of those present at the event was large, both the Association members and sympathizers. Mr. Ion Melniciuc presented many quotes about translation; one of them is as follows:”If you want to be closer to the original text, keep yourself away from it”. He also attracted our attention to the basic principles of translation: ”Show the faithfulness to the text, but do not deform the text meaning”.
During the two-hour workshop Mr. Melnic, a distinguished linguist, provoked us to a variety of challenges related to translation from Romanian into a foreign language. He started with examples of untranslatable words such as „zeamă”, „mărţişor”, „joc”, „mioriţa”, „casa mare”, ”peliniţa”, etc. It was such a relief when we were told that those words should be originally spelled and pronounced and their meaning shortly explained in the target language. We do exactly the same when we face such situations.
We also discussed about words from other languages that came into Romanian, especially from English. The use of the following words is disturbing: „talk show”, „job”, „on-line”, „emisiune live”, etc. They have equivalents in Romanian. We got a philosophical answer to our question about how to handle a large number of anglicisms that are used a lot in mass media and society: "Time will show if they are entrenched in the language or not”.
The next stage of the workshop was devoted to synonyms. Some examples of words that are synonyms: aborigen, băştinaş, autohton, indigen or îndrumare, povaţă, sfat. It is very important to choose a right word, especially in written translation, but this ability can also give honor to a translator engaged with oral translation.
When Mr. Melnic began to evaluate our level of knowledge about calques from other languages, especially from Russian and our ability to avoid them, we handled the task very well. All participants had their own examples of calques and could verify how accurately they use them in Romanian.
After the workshop all participants agreed that it was a good opportunity to verify the accuracy of expressions in the Romanian language.