The Tagalog Romance Translation Theory

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, and as you know, 'opinion of one doesn't reflect the whole'. :-)

After doing two MSV Versions releases and reading around ten translated manuscripts, I have come to these conclusions: 

A. Translating is not for everyone. One has to have a strong grasp of both the languages involved. 

B. Writing skills may be useful, but it will not cover for everything.

C. Translating is more alike to EDITING than to WRITING. Here are some of my reasons:

• It is done OBJECTIVELY. 

You have to be faithful to what is written in the original manuscript. The original tone should be intact. However, if the exact equivalent in Tagalog will make it sound different or wrong, opt for a more 'natural' approach, without drifting too far from the original.   

• Your personal WRITING STYLE doesn't count. It's the writer's work that should shine, not yours.

• There's some sort of SENSE OF ACCOUNTABILITY. You are responsible for every word you will use / change/ crop / add.

• It's LESS FULFILLING compared to writing your own manuscript; less credit will be given to you.

• Much of the burden will come from: 

(1) choosing the accurate term in place of the original word, but a good English-Tagalog Dictionary can do the job; 
(2) deciding whether to metaphrase (literal translation) or paraphrase; which sentence should be shifted from active to passive voice; and which word is translatable and which is not; when to back-translate;   
(3) making the dialogues sound realistic and natural; 
(4) and lastly, (most important, IMO), making the ideas smooth to read and easier to comprehend. 

• If worse comes to worst, you may have to do some real serious editing while doing the translation. :/  

In conclusion to these conclusions, let me share this to you. 'Translation' comes from the Latin word translatio, which means 'to bring across'-- which I think should be ultimate goal of every translator: to bring across the original message / idea / emotion of the foreign writer to every Filipino Romance pocketbook reader.