Reliving my days at uni in Manchester learning Translation Studies as taught by the author, among others...

A very informative book addressing issues of difficulty in translation from a more general perspective than most, i.e. rather than basing theories on a standard set of (usually European) languages and assuming they apply to languages less familiar to the proponents of such theories, Baker here presents practical examples of translations into and out of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and some far less well-known tribal languages. Information can be conveyed in the source by stress or intonation, word order, punctuation, inflexion or agreement of verbs, adjectives, etc.: ways which may be unfamiliar or impossible in the target language or culture. The book covers a number of such difficulties for translation to make translators aware of potential pitfalls and suggests strategies for dealing with them.

The book summarises a number of major theories related to translation and, more importantly for the professional rather than academic translator, explains how these theories can be put into practice.

When a university textbook makes you laugh, you know you're on a downward spiral into eternal geekdom. But that's okay. ( )