Particularitatile Functionale In Traducerea Termenilor Economici

Economie

Particularitatile Functionale In Traducerea Termenilor Economici

Byadmin ianuarie 1, 2024

Particularitățile funcționale în traducerea termenilor economici

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The practice in translation has been performed from November 10, 2014 till December 15, 2014 at SC “Liand Still” SRL, as a translator of English, Spanish and Romanian languages. Liand Still is a company specialized in marketing carpets of the highest quality. The company has strong ties with a number of countries, especially with Turkey. The origin of the Turkish goods is selected directly by the director.

Carpet-making is a bright page in the artistic culture of the Moldovan people. The ideas of beauty and harmony are reflected in carpets as well as in other folk art. During the centuries different kinds of ornamental motifs and composition were selected for a better design of carpets.

When I performed my translation practice at the company Liand Still, I realized the translator’s work is very important in daily life, because it has deal with all the domains, such as business. The main translation duty consists of converting information from one language into another one, by the mean of different translation techniques, such as word-or-word, literary, free translation etc. for the normal course of business operations in a company. What counts most is that the message of the text has to be converted in the most adequate way [9, p. 117].

Nowadays, translation and interpretation studies have become a need. That is why a good translator has to pay attention to numerous details and be conscious to the user’s needs and instructions. When the translator has some ambiguities, she/he must ask for an expert, to help or to make reference to the dictionaries or specialized books in that domain. As a beginner I tried to understand each word before translation in order not to undertake mistakes.

The practical training goals were:

to achieve new experience and knowledge during the practice- I have learnt that I translator must have a good knowledge in the field he translates, to produce a qualitative translation. To be informed has to be the first step at starting a translation work

to apply theory into practice- during seminars and theoretical courses I have learnt the rules of making a qualitative translation, by the mean of such objects as: Theory of Translation, TAM, Literary Translation and others.

to learn ethical and professional rules- there are a lot of details which has to know not only a translator but each person, such as, ethical behaviour, professional attitude and respect. Starting with greeting and ending with polite good bye. During practice I learnt how to interact with people and how to solve some difficulties with the teammates help. A polite smile, an adequate intonation and well formulated question make you a good teammate.

to be confidential- all that is done in the office have to remain there. Not to divulge a secret information and some specific methods of work help to be greeted well in a work team.

The project’s aim was to make an analysis of functional peculiarities in translating economic terms. The objectives of the translation practice were the following:

to work with new terms from unfamiliar fields;

to gain experience in translating documents;

to develop skills of written and oral translation of different types of documents;

to improve my translation abilities;

to work with synonyms ;

to make a qualitative translation.

This licence project is structured in two sections. Each deals with important issues related to the translation studies and translation process.

The first Section – Considerations on the Concept of Translation and Characteristics of Economic Translation – sets out to examine the most important trends and contributions in the field of translation studies and the peculiarities that a translator has to take into consideration when translating economic texts. The purpose of this section is to examine what exactly is understood by translation and how each theorist approaches this domain according to his viewpoint and field of research [16, online]. This section also highlights the fact that nowadays’ translation started to take a more automatic path. The invention of the internet, together with the new technological developments in communication and digital materials, has increased cultural exchanges between nations.

The second Section is entitled – Functional Peculiarities in Translating Economic Terms – looks at translation from three perspectives: considerations regarding the strategies of translation of economic terms, errors and difficulties in translating economic texts (definition, classification, implications) and analysis of economic texts. First of all, the section points out the importance of performing a good and correct translation, which is one of the most important element to be taken into consideration when discussing translating process.

This licence project ends with a Conclusion, Bibliography that lists the books, the dictionaries and the internet sources, and finally the Annexes that contain tables and examples.

On the whole, the paper is an overview of the history of translation studies, of the errors and difficulties in translating text and of the consequences of errors in professional translation, with applications to the economic field. The last, but not the least is an approach to the differences between languages (English, Spanish and Romanian), regarding issues of word meaning, polylexemic terms that can hinder comprehension for those who have embarked upon the difficult task of translation.

During the practical period I managed to develop, apply and consolidate practical skills that are essential for the translation process and for ensuring a high-quality translation. As a result I can remark that besides the benefits which I obtained during the translation practice course is that I learnt how to use a specific vocabulary.

I. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CONCEPT OF TRANSLATION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ECONOMIC TRANSLATION

I.1. A conceptual approach to the translation process

Translation is often associated with the transliteration of literary works from one language into another one. The ambiguity consists in the question: translation is an art or is a science? I think that the correct answer is that translation is an art based on science, and the interpretations made by linguists have often been the basis of the translators’ actual experiences.

It is not easy to give a complete definition of translation. It can refer to the general subject field, the products (the text that has been translated) or the process (the act of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating). The process of translation between two different languages involves the translator’s changing an original text (Source Text or ST) in the original verbal language (Source Language or SL) in a different verbal language (Target Language or TL). In a more general way, translation is considered the process of conveying a message from one language into another language, provided that all (or approximately all) the qualities of the original message are preserved [16, online].

According to researcher Ferdinand de Saussure, each language has its own individual way of reflecting the surrounding reality and of organizing the data accumulated from lifelong experience. Languages reflect the exterior reality and characterize it differently; as a result, the two pictures of the objective world presented by any two languages are not identical. It is considered that lexemes are a kind of ‘labels’ of objects, phenomena, qualities, actions. Such assertion can easily lead to the idea that translation is a simple change of ‘labels’. Ferdinand de Saussure also affirmed: “For some people language, reduced to its essential principle, is a nomenclature, meaning a list of terms that correspond with many things” [18, p. 59].

André Martinet stated that learning a language doesn't mean to assign new ‘labels’ on some known objects, but to analyze the object of linguistic communication [8, p. 130]. The idea that every language has its own way of analyzing the facts from the surrounding world presents a serious theoretical objection against the possibility of performing a translation. Languages differ not only in their exterior aspects – through an individual vocabulary and through a specific grammatical structure – but also through the way of organizing the semantic content of the lexicon. Therefore, people who speak different languages do not present things in the same way.

Apart from translation as a process, consideration should be given to the translation theory that is a special scientific discipline. According to M.T. Higueruela, the aims of the translation theory are: to follow the rules that are the basis of the translation from one language into another one, to establish the correlation between the Source Text (ST) and the Target Text (TT) and to generalize reliance on particular cases that afterwards could be used in performing a translation [6, p.181]. Translation theory helps practice in that it emphasizes different possibilities of language, it helps choosing from the wide variety of means the most suitable one for the given context. If language were just a classification of a set of general or universal concepts, it would be easy to translate from the SL to the TL. Furthermore, under the circumstances, the process of learning a foreign language would be much easier than it actually is. However, the languages do not simply name categories, they articulate their own. In light of the above, it appears that one of the troublesome translation problems is the disparity among languages. The bigger the gap between the SL and the TL is, the more difficult the transfer of message from the former to the latter will be.

Regarding the relation between translation and cultural communication, it should be emphasized that translation is a form of cross-cultural communication. Communication takes place through a medium and in situations that are limited in time and place. Each specific situation determines what and how people communicate, and it is changed by people in communication. Situations are not universal but are embedded in a cultural habitat, which, in its turn, conditions the situation. Language is thus to be regarded as a part of culture [20, online].

I.2. Peculiarities in translating economic texts

To translate means, first of all, to perceive the message and the vocabulary of the language. Addressing the challenges of translating economic texts involves, first of all, an analysis of the economic system itself, of its nature, content, forms, etc., as the translation of an economic text represents a confrontation of different economic systems, even if they belong to the same economic world.

There is a wide variety of peculiarities in translating economic texts. According to G. Domínguez, an important feature is conducting in-depth research, which supposes searching for terms and the choice of equivalences, by consulting specialists to explain terms or contexts, and especially by referring to a wide range of English, Romanian encyclopaedias, bilingual economic dictionaries , and online databases, translation tools, search engines, etc. [4, p. 154]. A translator should be familiar with economic phenomena, processes, operations and master the economic terms that names them. We should note that written translation has some advantages in comparison with oral translation. In written translation the original can be read and re-read as many times as the translator may need or like. The same goes for the final product. The translator can re-read his translation, compare it with the original one, make the necessary improvements or start his/her work all over again. The translator can return to the preceding part of the original text or get the information he/she needs from the subsequent messages. These are the most favourable conditions for translatintranslating and therefore we can expect the best performance and the highest level of equivalence.

Hence, another essential feature in translating economic texts is the level of equivalence. A translator must know how to equate the economic terms, to overlook and to make sure that the meaning from the ST is rendered in the TT. It is a rather difficult task, because of a wide range of borrowings, words that are used in everyday speech and English terms that have no equivalents in the Romanian and Spanish languages.

For example, Sim M.A. and Pop A.M posit that the Romanian professor Liviu Ornea admits that during his lectures he uses a lot of English technical words like ‘produs warped’ or simply ‘warped product‘as the Romanian version ‘produs răsucit ’and Spanish version ‘producto torcido’ is less scientific; another example is the English noun ‘twistor’ – a notion introduced by Roger Penrose, which means ‘răsucitură’ or ‘încolăcitură’ in Romanian and ‘torcion’ in Spanish language [19, online]. Therefore, it is more convenient to maintain the original English version of the words. For example:

Ro. Etapele ciclului de viață ale produsului sunt: concepție, design, realizare, serviciu.

En. The phases of the life cycle of the product are: conception, design, implementation, service.

Sp. Las etapas del ciclo de vida del producto son: la concepción, design, implementación, servicio.

Thus, the translator has to take into account the fact that there are words with different meanings and he/she also has to give an appropriate equivalent. For sure, the correct chosen equivalent has to correspond with the context. That is why a translator should consult specialized terminology sources. In the case that there is no equivalent of a certain word in the source/dictionary, the original term can be kept. Also it is possible to use a descriptive translation. In the example is presented an assimilated borrowing and this is the reason why the economic term ‘design’ is kept in its original English version when translating it in Romanian and Spanish languages.

A tool used is in translating economic terms is the metonymy, a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept [15, online]. With the help of metonymy the translator replaces the terms. It is an option to avoid the repetition of the words and to colour the text with a variety of terms. For example, the economic term ‘Euro’ can be replaced by ‘monedă unică’ in Romanian and ‘moneda única’ in Spanish with the aim to not repeat the word.

The next feature in translating economic terms is that text is characterized by coherence. C. Seguinot affirmed that an important contribution comes from cohesion: the set of linguistic resources that every language has for linking one part of the text for another [10, p. 168]. The role of coherence in the translation is very important. The translation has to be correct, regarding the style used in expression. The coherence becomes much more evident while translating a text of an eminently economic or financial nature, making it practically impossible to analyses outside its context. As a consequence, the nuances added by the contextual area will have mission of confirming the correct meaning of a given economic term, while the rest of unimportant entries that can be found in a specific dictionary should be ignored. A translation must not contain ambiguities, it means, is required an exact and precise translation for an exact and precise science.

It is not easy to keep the coherence when translating economic texts, because the filed itself is complicated and supposes more effort in translating it. When performing an economic translation it is necessary to follow the ideas from the SL and not change the meaning. When the text is coherent it means that the elements are interlinked, because coherence means logic and harmony.

The use of long sentences is another peculiarity in translating economic texts. It is easy to determine that in economic texts one sentence consists of several short sentences. Let us consider the following example given by M.T. Higueruela: “However, in recent years, some scholars and practitioners, particularly from the developing world, argue that the impact of minimum wages on poverty is more nuanced in theory and practice, particularly when the possibility of income sharing among the poor is accounted for” [6, p. 143].

First of all, it is important to understand the meaning of the entire sentence. The above sentence includes five commas used to separate each part which present different components, mainly as adverbial in a whole sentence, although one sentence is divided into several parts. That is to say, it is complicated in form but simple in content. This long sentence has a complex structure that consists of several clauses. The translator confronts with different complicated situations, such as the example given above. It is necessary to keep the order of the short sentences, the meaning of them, the grammar and the morphology. Therefore, the whole sentence looks complicated and difficult to understand.

The importance of the accuracy and sound aspect of the translation is the next specific feature of the economic translation. The translators should pay special attention to the aspects as: the correct word order in the TL, the conveyance of the ideas of the ST in clear sentences in the TL, rephrasing and adjusting certain sentences as to render the overall translated meaning. The most obvious mistakes in translating economic texts refer to the polysemantic nature of the business. Below are presented some examples of terms: the English noun ‘stock’ is mostly translated in Romanian as ‘stoc’ instead of ‘acțiune/titlu de valoare’ and in Spanish also it is translated as ‘stoc”’ instead of ‘acciones/valores’; the English noun ‘interest’ is rendered in Romanian as ‘interes’ and only sometimes as ‘dobândă’. The same happens in the Spanish language, the English noun ‘interest’ is translated in Spanish as ‘interés’ and sometimes as ‘beneficio’. The English noun ‘balance’ may be sometimes translated erroneously in Romanian as ‘balanță’ instead of ‘bilanț’, in Spanish ‘equilibrio’ instead of ‘saldo’ while the English noun “maturity” may be translated using the Romanian equivalent ‘maturitate’ instead of its more specialized meaning ‘scadență’ or the Spanish version ‘madurez’ instead of ‘vencimiento’. Another example is the English noun ‘security’ that becomes in Romanian ‘securitate’ instead of ‘garanție’ which is actually in line with the meaning of the ST or in Spanish language ‘securidad’ instead of ‘garantia’ [19, online].

As stated by Mona Baker, apart from some hilarious cases, there were also cases when the translation sounded absurd or even obstructed the understanding of the text [3, p. 121].

Terminology or the so-called sub-technical vocabulary is an important area in the economy and it needs to be approached such as when it comes to learning and rendering it. The importance of the terminology is determined by its relevance for the proper understanding of the economic texts as well as by the ubiquity of such terms in the economic texts. Some of examples are presented below:

Furthermore, the term ‘capital accumulation’ consists of two nouns, where the first one ‘capital’ refers just to the financial resources available for use, financial assets or the financial value of assets, such as cash. Once the translator seizes the economic meaning of the term, the second term ‘accumulation’ will be easy to render in the TL. In this way, the translator can get a proper translation of such economic collocation.

According to Michael Ansaldi, sometimes, such meaning “movements” take place under the influence of other languages which the Romanian, Spanish language was or is still in contact with [1, p. 123]. Thus, the terminological meaning of the Romanian noun ‘acțiuni’ (En. ‘shares’; Sp. ‘acciones’) – securities which represent a certain part of a company’s capital and which offer their owner the right to receive dividends – was transferred from French [9, p. 93].

Terminologization is the word transfer from general vocabulary into a specialized language by amplifying its semantic structure with a new meaning. I.-P. Armăsar underlined that many words in the common language are terminologized due to the combination of words with a terminological character (e.g. the Romanian lexical collocations ‘blocadă economică’, ‘bani gheață’, ‘preț de piață’, ‘preț de cost’, ‘vad comercial’, ‘pachet de acțiuni’ etc.) and (e.g. the Spanish lexical collocations ‘bloqueo económico’, ‘efectivo’, ‘precio de mercado’, ‘precio de coste’, ‘local comercial’, ‘paquete de acciones’ or by means of transfers from other languages (in the case of the Romanian language, the most frequent sources are the Spanish and English languages: ‘cont descoperit’ in Romanian language, ‘cuenta descubierta’ in Spanish language and the English version ‘overdraft account’. Another example is ‘plată cash’ in Romanian version, ‘cash payment’ in English language and ‘pago en efectivo’ is Spanish version etc. [2, 102].

The linguist Mona Baker reported in her book that although everyday language and specialized one use the same phonetics, the differences become a manifest especially as regards the lexis (lexical systems are formed of meanings deviating from the common language), in which nouns prevail. The nouns are followed by the verbs, adjectives and adverbs [3, p. 321].

In addition, the Anglicism’s translation arises many problems related to the morphological adaptation to the Romanian and Spanish languages. Below is presented of the extension of the words meaning according, relating to a semantic transfer. For example:

the Romanian verb ‘a aplica’ acquires the meaning of ‘a solicita un post/funcție’, ‘a face o cerere’, under the influence of the English verb ‘to apply(for)’. The Spanish version is the same: the verb ‘aplicar’ acquires the meaning of ‘solicitar un puesto de trabajo’, ‘hacer una demanda’.

the Romanian noun ‘atașament’ and the Spanish noun ‘acoplamiento’ take over the recent meaning ‘anexă’ under the influence of the English noun ‘attachment’;

the Romanian noun ‘apreciere’ and the Spanish one ‘reconocimiento’ has also started to mean ‘creștere’, under the influence of the English noun ‘appreciation’.

To sum up, it is worth noting that the translator of economic texts is supposed to think about the phenomenon of normalization in technical words and specialization in common expressions.

The translator who holds the background knowledge of economics can manage to deliver a high-quality translation of the texts related to this field. In this section I have done an attempt to summarize the characteristics reflected in the translation of economic texts, which mainly include issues related to the terminology utilization, long sentence, metonymy and research, level of equivalence, coherence, accuracy and sound aspect in translating economic texts.

In the following section, I have attempted to identify in the translated texts some of the theoretical issues approached in this first section. I have also analysed some functional peculiarities of the translation process based on the texts that I translated during my translation practice.

II. FUNCTIONAL PECULARITIES IN TRANSLATING ECONOMIC TERMS

II.1. Considerations regarding the strategies of translation of economic terms

Faithfulness is the primary factory that needs to be taken into consideration. The translator should be loyal to source language and then completely and accurately express the versions. In translation, it is not allowed to falsify, distort or delete source text on purpose. The second factor is expressiveness. Duff Alan affirmed that a good translation work needs to be smooth and easy to understand [5, p. 252]. Except for these two fundamental factors above, we still consider normalization and specialization. Daniel Jacobs posits that the economic literature is the product of economic development. More translation works of economic literature came into being with the developed economy. Meanwhile, the problem of normalization in translation of economic terminology cannot be ignored [7, p. 322].

In translation, particularly regarding the economic terminology, which is the core of the whole theory due to semantic aspects, translators are required to understand deeply its connotation and to set a proper translation version. Improper translation can lead to confusion of the meaning. Hence, we need to attach a high importance to delivering accurate translation. Translating the abbreviations is largely dependent on their accurate decoding. For instance, the English abbreviation ‘CPI’ has the abbreviation for ‘Consumer Price Index’.

ST: CPI (Consumer Price Index)

TT1: IPC (Indicele prețurilor de consum)

TT2: IPC (Índice de Precios al Consumidor)

On the other hand, specialization is the manifestation of high-quality translation. The status of exact science of economics requires that the translation of terminology be highly specialized. The common words and expressions that serve as a tool for reflecting economic issues should be considered as terminology and show the specialization in the process of translation. One-to-one correspondence between one term and its translation is the unique way to avoid the incomprehension caused by polysemy. Meanwhile, it can ensure a certain similarity, that is, symmetry between languages. Therefore, when translating economic texts, an economic background would be a most valuable asset, which helps the translator to understand in-depth the SL and deeply analyze the economic facts, in order to provide the readers with an accurate TT.

Below are presented some examples from the economic texts which I translated during my translation practice:

ST: The effective rate, which takes the power of compounding into account (This rate may be referred to as annual percentage rate (APR), annual equivalent rate (AER), effective interest rate, effective annual rate, and other terms).

TT1: Rata efectivă, la calcularea căreia se ține cont de calcularea dobȃnzii (Această rată poate fi denumită ca rată anuală, rată anuală echivalentă (RAE), rata dobânzii efective (RDE), dobândă anuală efectivă (DAE), etc).

TT2: La tasa efectiva, que toma el poder de interés compuesto en cuenta

(Esta tasa puede ser mencionada como tasa anual ,como porcentaje (APR), taxa anual equivalente (TAE), tipo de interés efectivo, tasa efectiva anual, y otros términos).

ST: Această variabilă a evoluat pe fundalul celei mai largi game de schimbări pe un termen lung.

TT1: This variable has evolved in the context of the widest range of long-term fluctuations.

TT2: Esta variable fue testigo de la más amplia gama de fluctuaciones en el largo plazo.

In the examples given above I adopted the strategy aimed at delivering an accurate, unambiguous and exact translation of economic texts, by using proper economic terms and abbreviations, by ensuring a symmetrical length of sentences, and eventually by ensuring an equivalence between the ST and TT1 and TT2. By adopting the proper translation strategies, the translator conforms to various norms in the translation action, and promotes the ethical values which govern the translation norms.

II.2. Analysis of economic texts

This section is a practical approach to the translation of economic texts. Using the method of case study (based on economic texts), I considered various translation circumstances in this section and performed the analysis of the most difficult and relevant aspects that I encountered during the translation of the economic texts. An important aspect of a translation is the lexis (synonymy, homonymy and polysemy), which is one of the most significant elements to be considered when discussing translation.

In what follows, I have included some economic texts and their translation in order to highlight the relevant aspects and the difficulties that I encountered during the translation practice.

Text 1

Produs intern brut

ST: Produsul Intern Brut (prescurtat PIB) este un indicator macroeconomic care reflectă suma valorii de piață a tuturor mărfurilor și serviciilor destinate consumului final, produse în toate ramurile economiei în interiorul unei țări în decurs de un an. Acesta se poate calcula și la nivelul unei regiuni sau localități.

TT1: Gross Domestic Product (GDP abbreviated) is a macroeconomic indicator which reflects the sum of the market value of all goods and services for final consumption, goods in all branches of economy within a country within a year. It can be calculated at the level of a region or locality.

TT2: El Producto Interno Bruto (abreviado PIB) es un indicador macroeconómico que refleja la suma del valor comercial de todos los bienes y servicios de consumo final, los bienes en todas las ramas de la economía de un país en un año. Se puede calcular a nivel de una región o localidad.

ST: PIB-ul este suma cheltuielilor pentru consum a gospodăriilor private și a organizațiilor private non-profit, a cheltuielilor brute pentru investiții, a cheltuielilor statului, a investițiilor în scopul depozitării ca și câștigurile din export din care se scad cheltuielile pentru importuri.

TT1: GDP is the sum of consumption expenditure of households and private non-profit organizations, gross expenditures for investments, government spending and investment for storage as export earnings from which the costs for imports decrease.

TT2: El PIB es la suma de los gastos de consumo de los hogares y las organizaciones privadas non-profit, de gastos brutos para inversiones, gasto público, inversión en fines de almacenamiento como los ingresos de exportación de donde disminuan los gastos de importaciones.

ST: Aceste cheltuieli pot fi clasificate în: bunuri durabile, bunuri perisabile și servicii.

TTI: These costs can be classified into: durable goods, perishable goods and services.

TT2: Estos gastos se pueden clasificar en: bienes duraderos, bienes y servicios perecederos.

During the translation I had to handle different new economic terms , such as: ‘Gross Domestic Product’, which in Romanian language means ‘Produs Intern Brut’ or in Spanish means ‘el Producto Interno Bruto’; En.‘ consumption’ – ‘consum’ in Romanian and ‘consumo’ in Spanish,; En. ‘households’, that in Romanian means ‘gospodării private’ and in Spanish language means ‘hogares’; En. ‘perishable goods’, which means ‘bunuri perisabile’ in Romanian and ‘bienes perecederas’ in Spanish etc. These words and expressions loaded with special meanings are fixed and mainly used in economic texts (see Annex 5). The idea is that a translator should be familiar with the economic terms, at the same time being capable of understanding their meanings, and be aware of many facets of the economic field.

It is necessary to mention that there are also economic terms that are similar in Romanian and in Spanish language, like the words: ‘macroeconomic indicator’ – English, ‘indicator macroeconomic’- Romanian, ‘indicador macroeconómico’- Spanish or the English word ‘private non-profit organizations’ is like the Romanian version ‘organizații private non-profit' or Spanish version ‘organizaciones privadas non-profit’. Another example from the article can be the economic term ‘imports’. The Romanian translation is ‘importuri’, while the Spanish version is ‘importaciones’. It is an important aspect in translating economic texts/terms. Some economic terms are similar and international to help people all over the world to communicate, to collaborate, to conclude treaties.

Apart from these two points, it is worth noting the usage of the abbreviations (see Annex 3). The role of the abbreviation is significant in translating economic texts and the same time represents a difficulty for the translator, because the abbreviation depends on the language. For example, the Romanian economic term ‘Produs Intern Brut’ has the abbreviation ‘PIB’. We can observe that it suffers changes in terms of word order in the process of translation. In English language it is ‘Gross Domestic Product’ with the abbreviation ‘GDP’, while the Spanish version is ‘Producto Interno Bruto’ – ‘PIB’. Therefore, the translator should know all the abbreviations in the languages he/she operates with and also decoding them.

The translation technique I used in translating the text is the literal translation, which can be used just in some languages, because it depends on the structure of the sentence: ‘Un produs se poate calcula și la nivel regional’ would translate into Spanish as ‘Un producto se puede calcular también al nivel regional’. The Romanian sentence above could not be translated into English using this technique, because the English sentence structure is different. ‘Un produs se poate calcula și la nivel regional’ translates into English ‘A product can be calculated also at regional level’ (‘regional’ and ‘level’ are reversed). This technique is the calque or blueprint translation.

Text 2

Product life-cycle management

ST: Product life cycle refers to the average lifetime of a product: it refers to an analogy with biology (the products are born, grow, and get mature and then older).

TT1: Ciclul de viață al produsului se referă la durata medie de viață a unui produs: se face o analogie cu biologia (produsele se nasc, se dezvoltă, ajung la maturitate și apoi îmbătrânesc).

TT2: Ciclo de vida del producto se refiere al promedio de vida de un producto: se hace una analogía con la biología (los productos nacen, crecen, maduran y envejecen).

ST: The entire product lifecycle, from the concept and its growth to final disappearance from the arena trade, includes the following phases: raw material acquisition, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, use, recycling and product recall from the market.

TT1: Întregul ciclu de viață al produsului, de la concepția și dezvoltarea sa până la dispariția sa definitivă din arena schimburilor de mărfuri, include următoarele faze: achiziția materiilor prime, producția, ambalarea, distribuția, utilizarea, reciclarea și retragerea produsului de pe piață.

TT2: Todo el ciclo de vida del producto, desde su concepción y su desarrollo hasta su desaparición definitiva de la arena de los cambios de mercancías, incluye las siguientes fases: la adquisición de materia prima, la fabricación, el envasado, la distribución, el uso, el reciclaje y retirada del producto del mercado.

ST: The life cycle is formed of consecutive and interlinked stages of a product system, from raw material acquisition or generation of natural resources to post- use.

TT1: Ciclul de viață reprezintă etape consecutive și intercorelate ale unui sistem-produs, de la achiziția materiilor prime sau generarea resurselor naturale până la post-utilizare.

TT2: El ciclo vital representa etapas consecutivas e interrelacionadas de un sistema de producto, desde la adquisición de materias primas o la generación de los recursos naturales hasta post-uso.

ST: The phases of the life cycle of the product are: conception, design, implementation, service. If this term is used as a marketing concept, the life cycle is “market-oriented".

TT1: Etapele ciclului de viață ale produsului sunt: concepție, design, realizare, serviciu. În cazul în care acest termen se utilizează ca un concept de marketing, ciclul de viață este „orientat spre piață”.

TT2: Las etapas del ciclo de vida del producto son: la concepción, design, implementación, servicio. Si este término se utiliza como un concepto de marketing, el ciclo de vida es „orientado al mercado”.

Analyzing the fragments above, I have encountered some difficulties and some challenging situations in translating them. First of all, I used the direct translation techniques, it happens when there are conceptual elements that can be transposed into the TL, more exactly – the borrowing. For example:

These words are naturalized to suit the grammar and the pronunciation of the TL. Eventually these words become part of the lexicon system of the TL as in Romanian and Spanish languages.

Furthermore, in these financial texts, there are also noun clusters or collocations, including the word ‘raw material acquisition’ that are specific to the economic field. These terms make the process of translation more difficult. It is translated in Romanian as ‘achiziția materiilor prime’ and in Spanish ‘la adquisición de materias primas’.

As Alan Duff stated, noun clusters can be defined as “groups of words consisting of a chain of elements, all of them pre-modifying a final noun which is the nucleus of the series. In addition he says that noun clusters are “two or more nouns plus necessary adjectives that together make up a single concept; that is, the total expresses a single noun idea” [5, p. 198]. That is the case of the English collocations ‘product lifecycle’, ‘average lifetime’, ‘raw material adquisition’ or ‘consecutive and interlinked stages’.

Another example is the term ‘product lifecycle’. It refers to the average lifetime of a product and can be translated in Romanian as ‘durata medie de viață a unui produs’ and in Spanish language as ‘ciclo de vida del producto’. This gives an approximate idea of how complex it becomes to translate a concept several times in the different ways. As we can see, the word has a variety of possible translations depending on the specific context that it is necessary to highlight nuances we cannot find in a bilingual dictionary. This shows that we must take into account not only the elements present in the text, but also the entire socio-cultural framework, together with a general knowledge of economics, in order to produce a good translation.

We believe in the necessity of giving translation the importance it deserves, rather than considering it a mechanical process that can be carried out with the help of a dictionary alone.

It is necessary to underline the translation technique I performed when translating the text. It is well known that direct translation techniques are used when the conceptual elements of the SL are transferred into the TL. From those three methods (calque, borrowing, literal translation) I used the borrowing.

There are some borrowings which I identified when translating the text. For example the word ‘management’ is taken directly from English language without translation, as well as the words ‘design’, ‘marketing’. I used this technique in order to accurately translate the texts and to stick to the style of economic texts.

Text 3

The role of economics in competition

ST: Competition law is essentially concerned with the study of markets, the objective being to ensure that there is competition between the suppliers in any market and that this competition benefits consumers, in an economic language.

TT1: Legea concurenței se referă la studiul piețelor, obiectivul fiind acela de a asigura că există o concurență între furnizorii din orice piață și că această competiție beneficiază consumatorii, în limbajul economic.

TT2: La ley de la competencia se refiere al estudio de los mercados, con el objetivo de garantizar que no haya competencia entre los proveedores de cualquier mercado y que esta competencia beneficia los consumidores, en el lenguaje económico.

ST: Daily, the aplication of the competition law involves identifying the markets and assessing whether competition is working well in those markets.

TT1: Zilnic, aplicarea dreptului concurenței implică identificarea piețelor și analiza indiferent dacă concurența funcționează bine în aceste piețe.

TT2: Diario, la aplicación de la ley de competencia implica la identificación de los mercados y el análisis independientemente si la competencia funciona bien en estos mercados.

ST: These are essentially economic problems, as the Competition Commission of India (CCI) commences its operations with a mandate, to preserve and promote competition in the markets.

TT1: Acestea sunt, în esență, probleme economice, întrucât Comisia Concurenței din India (CCI) începe operațiunile cu un mandat, printre altele, de a conserva și promova concurența pe piață.

TT2: Estas son esencialmente los problemas económicos, mientras que la Comisión de Competencia de la India (CCI) inicia operaciones con un mandato, entre otras cosas, para preservar y promover la competencia en el mercado.

ST: Economists study how markets allocate goods and services to different consumers.

TT1: Economiștii studiază modul în care piețele alocă bunuri și servicii către diverși consumatori.

TT2: Los economistas estudian cómo los mercados asignan los bienes y servicios a los consumidores diferentes.

ST: Economics is recognized as an essential tool to assess market power and to determine market boundaries in which such market power is to be analyzed by competition authorities. It is, therefore, an imperative for legal practitioners from India to develop a clear understanding of the economic issues, such as determination of the correct relevant market, determination of entry barriers that may be created by behaviour of certain firms.

TT1: Economia este recunoscută ca un instrument esențial pentru a evalua puterea de piață și pentru a determina limitele pieței în care o astfel de putere de piață trebuie să fie analizată de către autoritățile din domeniul concurenței. Este, prin urmare, un imperativ pentru practicienii în domeniul dreptului din India de a dezvolta o înțelegere clară a problemelor economice, cum ar fi determinarea pieței relevante corectă, determinarea barierelor de intrare care pot, printre altele, să fie create de comportamentul anumitor firme.

TT2: La economía es reconocida cómo un instrumento esencial para evaluar el poder de mercado y determinar los límites del mercado en que tal poder de mercado debe ser examinado por las autoridades de la competencia. Por tanto, es un imperativo para los practicantes del sector de derecho en India desarrollar una comprensión clara de las cuestiones económicas, como la determinación del mercado relevante correcto, de las barreras de entrada que pueden, entre otras cosas, ser creadas por el comportamiento de ciertas empresas.

ST: Competition lawyers in the EU and the US regularly work with economists who specialize in matters such as market definition.

TT1: Juriștii din domeniul dreptului concurențial din UE și SUA colaborează în mod regulat cu economiști specializați în probleme cum ar fi definirea pieței.

TT2: Los juristas de la competencia de la Unión Europea y de Estados Unidos trabajan regularmente con economistas especializados en temas como la definición del mercado.

ST: It will be interesting to trace the growth of competition jurisprudence in the US and the EU.

TT1: Va fi interesant de a urmări creșterea jurisprudenței din domeniul concurenței în SUA și UE.

TT2: Será interesante seguir el crecimiento de la jurisprudencia de la competencia en los EE.UU. y la UE.

ST: In the US, under Structure-Conduct-Performance model, which prevailed in the 1930s, the focus of attention was on concentrated industries where barriers for entries were widespread.

TT1: În SUA, în conformitate cu Modelul Structură-Conduită-Performanță, care a prevalat în anii 1930, centrul atenției a fost asupra industriilor concentrate în care barierele de înregistrări au fost larg răspândite.

TT2: En los EE.UU.según el modelo de Estructura-Conducta-Performance, que se impuso en la década de 1930, la atención se centró en las industrias donde las barreras de registros eran muy extendidas.

When translating the above economic texts, I noticed that it is very important to use the most suitable synonym according to the meaning from the ST. This is the reason of an enormous number of dictionaries, because a specialist has to consult the dictionary so as to be absolutely sure of the chosen lexical item. One wrong synonym can bring to a totally different meaning. The economics develops very fast and new words appear not only in the SL, but also in the TL as an assimilated borrowing. It means that the word keeps the same structure and spelling.

An example of synonymy is presented below:

There is competition between the suppliers in any market and this competition benefits consumers, in an economic language.

Există o concurență între furnizorii de pe orice piață și de această competiție beneficiază consumatorii, în limbajul economic.

Existe competencia entre los proveedores en cualquier mercado y esta competencia beneficia a los consumidores, en lenguaje económico.

The word language in the dictionary has the meaning of:

a system of communication used by a particular country or community;

a system of symbols and rules for writing programs or algorithms;

a method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way [17, online].

Translating the English word ‘language’ from English into Romanian, I had confronted the problem of synonyms, because the word which has to be chosen is ‘limbaj’, but not ‘limbă’. If I had selected the word ‘limbă’, it would have needed a different context. The same happens in the Spanish language. It is the second meaning of the word ‘language’ that means – ‘lenguaje’ – , while the meaning of ‘lengua’ requires a different context.

Another major problem in translating economic terms is presented below:

ST: Aplicarea dreptului concurenței implică identificarea piețelor și analiza indiferent dacă concurența funcționează bine în aceste piețe.

TT1: The aplication of competition law involves identifying markets and assessing whether the competition is working well in those markets.

TT2: La aplicación del análisis de la ley de competencia implica la identificación de los mercados independientemente si la competencia funciona bien en estos mercados.

The word ‘application’ has the meaning of putting to a special use or purpose. The meaning can be perceived in the next combination: ‘una letra de aplicación’. A totally different meaning can be found in the field of informatics, where it is has the meaning of ‘application’/ ‘aplicación’. There is the combination of the words ‘application software’ or ‘aplicación sofware’ that appears in the informatics field. It is necessary to underline that the English word ‘application’ has the same spelling and pronunciation, but a totally different meaning. It is very effective to know the entire range of word meanings, because ignoring them leads to mistakes in translation.

It should be mentioned that the order of the terms in text is of special relevance (see Annex 2). For example, the English phrase ‘Structure-Conduct-Performance model’ is translated into Romanian language as ‘model Structură-Conduită-Performanță’ and in Spanish as ‘modelo Estructura-Conducta-Desempeño’. The noun ‘model’ in the English version appears at the end of the noun cluster, while in Romanian version it is at the beginning of the noun cluster. The same happens in the Spanish language: ‘modelo Estructura – Conducta- Desempeño’. Another example is considered to be the combination of words ‘economic problems’. The Romanian version is ‘probleme economice’ and the Spanish version is ‘problemas economicos’. In English the adjective ‘economic’ appears before the noun ‘problems’, while in the Spanish and Romanian languages it appears after the noun, at the end. There are words in the Romanian language that suffer changes when translating them into Spanish language, such as the word ‘problem’. In the Romanian language it is of feminine gender. When translating the word ‘problem’ / ‘o problemă’ into Spanish language, the feminine gender is not kept. It is translated in the masculine gender ‘un problema’ [12, p. 125]. A translator must pay attention to all the details, which can lead to undertake mistakes during the translation process.

Below I have underlined another difficulty which I encountered while I translated Text 3 and this is the calque or blueprint translation. It consists in translating a sentence borrowed from the SL, by adapting it to the structure and the grammatical rules of the TL which may be not similar to the SL.

For example:

Spanish competencia and Romanian competiție calques English competition;

Spanish servicio and Romanian serviciu calques English service;

Spanish mandato and Romanian mandat calques English mandate;

Spanish jurisprudencia and Romanian jurisprudență calques English jurisprudence.

To conclude, this brief texts analysis shows that a translator should take into account the vocabulary, the word meaning and its usage, because understanding the terminology (economic terminology in our case), and finding the appropriate meanings of the words that may raise some problems in translation are of great importance, as the text can be considered as “almost” translated.

Apart from this, there are two morphological features characteristic to all economic texts, namely the noun clusters in which several nouns and adjectives are combined to designate one single concept (e.g. ‘competition law’, ‘economic language’, ‘competition commission’, ‘market power’, ‘market boundaries’, ‘correct relevant market’) and long nominal groups, groups that function as subject and which consist of a ‘head’ noun with all its associated words, such as adjectives, prepositions and clauses that change it (e.g. ‘the objective being to ensure that there is competition’, ‘market boundaries in which such market power is to be analysed’, ‘determination of the correct relevant market’, ‘economists who specialize in matters such as market definition’). These long nominal groups consist of a ‘head’ noun and dense, embedded clauses.

When translating the text I used the oblique translation techniques, more exactly, the transposition, which is a process where the parts of speech change their sequence when they are translating. For example, the Romanian combination ‘limbaj economic’ becomes ‘economic language’ in English, and ‘lenguage economico’ in Spanish. The grammatical structure differs from language to language. In the Romanian and Spanish languages the noun appears before the adjective, while in English it comes after the adjective. Transposition is often used between English and Spanish languages, for example: ‘competition jurisprudence’ in English will be translated in Spanish different ‘jurisprudencia de la competencia’ or ‘correct relevant market’ is translated in Spanish language different ‘mercado correcto y relevante’. The order of some words is changing when translating the term from one language into another.

Three economic texts have been proposed for analysis and they differ from general texts in terms of purpose, target audience, subject matter and structural conventions. Moreover, those texts contain terminology and concepts specific to the economic field. The vocabulary is specialized and there is a tendency towards excessively complicated grammar that may put the translator into dilemma.

To sum up, the major difficulty that a translator is sure to encounter when she/he has to deal with a specialized writing (economic writing) is the difficulty in understanding the concepts due to the long and complex sentences and the strong need for general knowledge in the field. In order to make it easier for the translator, a list of the most common economic texts and a list of acronyms have been presented in the Annexes hereto.

CONCLUSION

The project consists of a theoretical and a practical part, in which the process of translation of economic texts is presented.

When performing the translation of economic texts, I have realised that a translator needs to fulfil some specific pre-requisites, such as: to have knowledge of the economic field, to produce a coherent translation meaning, to use the same words that are from the same stylistic register as the ST, to reproduce not only the content of a text, but also the form, to pay attention to all the details, to use the words that correspond with the context, to choose the right words, because a word has more meanings, to comply with the specific of the SL meaning, to avoid altering the text, introducing improper elements in the translated text or performing a literal mechanical translation.

Every translation activity has one or more specific purposes and whichever they may be, the main aim of translation is to serve as a cross-cultural bilingual communication process between people.

For future specialists the practice has a significant role, because it offers a real experience for masters on the way to developing. When performing our translation practice, we are given the chance to apply our knowledge, translation skills and abilities.

During the practice, I had to cope with lexical and grammatical difficulties when I tried to translate an English economic text into Romanian and into Spanish. It was rather hard for me at the beginning to process and understand correctly the information of the ST, to choose the right equivalent of the word, to translate the phrasal verbs and economic idioms (see Annex 4). Therefore I carried out some research work in order to find a solution for the complexity of the noun clusters that put me in the difficulty. Also, the long, complex sentences and complicated grammar confused me in translating economic texts.

The translator has a very important mission in the process of translation. First of all he/she has to choose the vocabulary, to reproduce different meanings of the words and, for example, when dealing with a literary translation, the rules are to know the language, the culture and the history of people, as well as their habits, described in the ST.

During my licence project I have realized that one of the greatest accomplishments of a good translation is a deep knowledge in the economic field. It is not enough to have a passing acquaintance with another language to produce good translations. A translator must have a thorough knowledge of both languages and an ability to deal with differences in meaning that appear insignificant until you cross over to the other language. A translator must know all the words, all the new words from the field he/she is operating with. He/she must know also the meaning of the words to put them in the appropriate context (see Annex 1).

As for me, this practice gave me a most valuable experience, because I had the chance to improve my translation abilities, to make a qualitative translation, to practice in a company. I enlarged my vocabulary and my knowledge, operating with a lot of new words from economic sector. I gained experience, because I have faced with a lot of complicated situation in the process of translating economic texts. The economic field was unknown for me and due to this project I managed to become very much familiar with this field, and this will definitely help me in the near future.

G. Steiner affirmed: “We believe in the necessity of giving translation the importance it deserves, rather than considering it a mechanical process that can be carried out with the help of a dictionary alone” [11, p. 220]. As for me, it is a much more complex and interesting activity, which involves going beyond simply linking a series of words to produce a translation that is correctly understood by the target audience unfamiliar with the source language.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ansaldi, Michael. Translation and the Law: Observations of a Law Professor/Translator. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. 320 p.

Armăsar, Ioana-Paula. Aspects of Specialized Translation in the Feld of Economics. Transilvania: University of Brașov, 2014. 258 p.

Baker, Mona. In other words: A Course Book on Translation. New York: Routledge University, 1992. 458 p.

Domínguez, Guadalupe. Implications in Translating Economic Texts. Extremadura: University of Extremadura, 1997. 310 p.

Duff, Alan. Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. 517 p.

Higueruela, M.T. The Translation of Economic Texts. Extremadura: University of Extremadura, 1997. 367 p.

Jacobs, Daniel. Technology Analysis and Strategic Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 437 p

Martinet, André. Elements of General Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. 355 p.

Munday, Jeremy. Introducing translation studies. London: University of Leeds, 2001. 213 p.

Seguinot, Candace. Interpreting errors in translation. New York: University of New York, 1990. 580 p.

Steiner, G. Aspects of Language and Translation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 450 p.

Dictionaries

12. Bejuc, V. Dicționar spaniol-român și român-spaniol. Chișinău, 2007. 368 p.

13. Eatwell, John. A Dictionary of Economics. Stockton: Stockton University Press, 1987. 860 p.

14. Hornby, Albert. Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. New-York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 900 p.

Internet sources

15. My English Pages. Figures of Speech – Metonymy, available at http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/writing-metonymy.php ( visited on 06.05.2015).

16. Olteanu, Andreea-Rosalia. Errors and Difficulties in Translating Economic Texts, available at http://lectura.bibliotecadigitala.ro/Olteanu_Adriana/Errors_and_difficulties_in_translating_economic_texts.pdf (visited on 17.05.2015).

17. Oxford Dictionaries, available at http://oxforddictionaries.com (visited on 23.04.2015).

18. Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics, available at http://home.wlu.edu/~levys/courses/anth252f2006/saussure.pdf (visited on 20.04.2015).

19. Sim, Monica Ariana; Pop, Anamaria Mirabela. Managing Problems When Translating Economic Texts, available at http://steconomiceuoradea.ro/anale/volume/2012/n2/021.pdf (visited on 07.04.2015).

20. Tianmin, Jiang. Translation in Context, available at http://www.translationdirectory.com/article1076.htm (visited on 19.05.2015).

ANNEXES

ANNEX 1. Abridged glossary of economic terms

ANNEX 2. Collocations in economic texts

En. Production Budget (noun + noun)

Ro. Buget de producție (subst. +prep. + subst.)

Sp. Presupuesto de producción (subst. + prep. + subst.)

En. Stock Exchange (noun + noun)

Ro. Bursă de mărfuri (subst. + prep. + subst.)

Sp. Beca de mercancías (subst. + prep. + subst.)

En. Gross domestic product (adj. + noun + noun)

Ro. Produs intern brut (subst. +prep. + subst.)

Sp. Producto interno bruto (subst. + adj. + adj.)

En. Form of sale (noun + prep. + noun)

Ro. Formă de vînzare (subst. +prep. + subst.)

Sp. Forma de venta (subst. + prep. + subst.)

En. Production function (noun + noun)

Ro. Functie de productie (subst. + prep. + subst.)

Sp. Función de producción (subst. + prep. + subst.)

En. Request Product (adj. + noun)

Ro. Cerere de mărfuri (subst. + prep. + subst.)

Sp. Demanda de bienes (subst. + prep. + subst.)

En. Incentive Strategy (adj. + noun)

Ro. Strategie de stimulare (subst. + prep. + subst.)

Sp. Estrategia para estimular (subst. + prep. + subst.)

En. Mortgage banking (adj. + noun)

Ro. Bancă de credit ipotecar (subst. + prep. + subst. + adj.)

Sp. Banca Hipotecaria (subst. + adj.)

ANNEX 3. Economic abbreviations

ANNEX 4. Finance and economy idioms

to weather the storm = survive bad times:

ST: We’re trying to weather the storm by lowering our prices.

TT1: Noi încercăm să revenim în forță prin scăderea prețurilor noastre.

TT2: Nosotros intentamos salir adelante al bajar nuestros precios.

to be in good shape (the economy is in good shape) = to be strong:

ST: Fortunately, we're in good shape financially, so we should be able to weather the storm.

TT1: Din fericire, suntem bine,din punct de vedere financiar, deci noi ar trebui să fim capabili de a reveni în forță.

TT2: Afortunadamente, estamos en un buen estado financieramente, por lo que debemos ser capaces para salir adelante.

to live beyond your means = not earn enough money, so you need to borrow money:

ST: We have to stop living beyond our means.

TT1: Trebuie să încetăm să cheltuim mai mult decît cîștigăm.

TT2: Hay que dejar de gastar más de lo que ganamos.

to pay the price = pay for your mistakes:

ST: The country is paying the price for its previous spending policies.

TT1: Țara plătește pentru cheltuielile sale politice anterioare.

TT2: Él país está pagando por sus gastos anteriores politicos.

to foot the bill = pay for someone else:

ST: He took me out for lunch and footed the bill.

TT1: El m-a invitat în oraș pentru a lua prînzul și a achitat nota de plată.

TT2: El me llevó a almorzar y pagó la cuenta.

at rock bottom = to be so low you cannot go any further down:

ST: The economy must be at rock bottom now.

TT1: Economia trebuie să fie la pămînt acum.

TT2: La economía debe estar por los suelos ahora.

in free fall = keep falling without anything stopping the fall:

ST: The economy is in free fall.

TT1: Economia este în cădere liberă.

TT2: La economía está en caída libre.

to break the bank = to cost a lot of money:

ST: I can't afford a skiing holiday this winter – it would break the bank.

TT1: Nu-mi pot permite o vacanță de schi în această iarnă – ar costa prea mult.

TT2: No me puedo permitir unas vacaciones de esquí este invierno – costaría demasiado.

to cost an arm and a leg = be very expensive:

ST: It costs an arm and a leg to buy all these Christmas presents.

TT1: Este foarte scump de a cumpăra toate aceste cadouri de Crăciun.

TT2: Es muy caro para comprar todos estos regalos de Navidad.

to pay through the nose = cost a lot:

ST: They had to pay through the nose to get their son insured to drive.

TT1: Ei au trebuit să plătească un preț exorbitant pentru ca fiul lor să fie asigurat pentru a conduce.

TT2: Ellos tenían que pagar un precio exorbitante para que su hijo sea asegurado para conducer.

to splash out on something = to pay a lot for an important event:

ST: They're splashing out on their anniversary this year.

TT1: Ei cheltuiesc foarte mulți bani pentru aniversarea lor de anul acesta.

TT2: Ellos están gastando mucho dinero en su aniversario este año.

to have more money than sense = to have a lot of money which you waste rather than spend carefully:

ST: He just bought another camera – he has more money than sense.

TT1: El tocmai și-a cumpărat alt aparat de fotografiat- el are mai mulți bani de pierdut decît de cîștigat.

TT2: Él acaba de comprar otra cámara – el tiene más dinero que desperdi – ciar en lugar de gastar con cuidado.

money for old rope = an easy source of income:

ST: He sells bunches of flowers he has grown himself. It's money for old rope.

TT1: El vinde buchete de flori pe care le-a crescut de unul singur. Sînt bani câștigați ușor.

TT2: Él vende ramos de flores que él mismo los ha crecido. Dinero ganado fácil.

ten a penny = very common:

ST: These scarves are ten a penny in the markets here.

TT1: Aceste eșarfe sunt frecvente în piețele de aici.

TT2: Estas bufandas son muchas en los mercados de aquí.

ANNEX 5. Glossary of economic terms