Translation for Translators

Existing English translations are not intended to be used as a source text by those who would be translating it into other languages. It is our hope that A Translation for Translators will provide information that a translator needs but which is not included in standard versions.

Its distinguishing features are:
• Short sentences
• Clear connections between clauses and sentences
• Sometimes clause order is reversed to reflect more clearly the chronological or logical order
• All abstract nouns are made into full clauses
• Most passive constructions have an active form and a passive form supplied
• Most rhetorical questions have both a question form and a non-question form supplied
• All figures of speech that we have been able to identify are stated non-figuratively
• Simple vocabulary is used wherever possible
• Words are always used in their primary sense

The implicit information that is deemed necessary to understand what the original writer intended to convey is supplied in italics. Users can identify it easily and decide after checking whether it is needed in that receptor language.

Most national translators who use this translation as the major source text will need to be trained how to use it. They will need to learn to evaluate the adjustments in this translation to determine what is the most appropriate adjustment for their own language.

This translation is based on the scholarship of the Semantic and Structural Analyses and other published helps for translators, such as Exegetical Summaries, as well as the English versions and commentaries. It is not anticipated that a translator would use only this translation. Translators should use other translations as sources alongside this one.

Advantages to using this translation:
• The implicit information, written in italics, is easily seen. Translators could choose to use it, modify it, or reject it as unnecessary.
• In this day and age we have available a tremendous amount of research as to the meaning that the original writers expected to convey to their audiences. Most of this research is not readily available to national translators. This translation utilizes that research and it provides the first step in translation—analyzing the meaning.

Please note that there is no implied endorsement of this translation by the Translation Department, either of the Summer Institute of Linguistics or of the Wycliffe Bible Translators or of any other publisher.