Question: When you're translating from one language to another, how do you decide which word to use? I'm asking because I saw recently that you translated llamativas as "bold," but that isn't one of the words listed when I looked up that word in the dictionary.
Answer: You must be referring to my translation of the sentence "¿La fórmula revolucionaria para obtener pestañas llamativas?" (taken from a Spanish-language Maybelline mascara ad) as "The revolutionary formula for getting bold eyelashes?" You'd probably be even more confused if I had stuck with my first draft, which used the word "thick," which you're unlikely to see anywhere else as a possible translation of llamativo.
I'll briefly explain the various philosophies of translation before discussing that particular word. In general, it can be said that there are two extreme approaches in the way one can translate from one language to another. The first is seeking a literal translation, sometimes known as formal equivalence, in which an attempt is made to translate using the words that correspond as exactly as possible in the two languages, allowing, of course, for the grammatical differences but without paying a great deal of attention to context. A second extreme is paraphrasing, sometimes called making a free or loose translation