I’m often asked by potential clients how long it will take them to become “fluent” in their target language. I always ask in return what it means to them to be fluent. People have varying ideas about what it means to be fluent in a foreign language. Some people perceive it as being able to communicate on a very basic level without much difficulty while others view it as being equivalent to a native speaker and everything in between.
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As a Spanish and German language instructor I am sometimes asked to do translation work. However, I am not qualified as a translator or interpreter and must carefully explain that to my clients. They are sometimes confused, they don’t understand why if someone can speak two languages they cannot simply translate between them. The answer to this question is explained in the wonderfully written Found in Translation co-authored by Nataly Kelly, a Spanish-English translator and Jost Zetzsche a German-English interpreter.
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