Translation tips for beginners and intermediate level (English speaking) students learning Spanish!
I have observed for many years that many English-speaking students of beginner and intermediate level learning Spanish struggle to translate from English into Spanish. I used to struggle a lot with this myself until a native Spanish speaker from Colombia told me that I needed to stop translating things literally 'word for word' and take note of how native Spanish speakers expressed themselves naturally in writing and in speech....then I would really start to make great progress! Many of you probably need to do the same!
The most common mistake is to try to translate words and phrases too literally and to ask why a particular Spanish sentence that they found makes little or no sense to them.
These kind of questions are quite common in Spanish Dict ...so with this in mind I decided to write a few tips for beginners and intermediate level students of Spanish.
1.Observe how native Spanish speakers and those who are fluent speak and write their own language.
Examples: Cordobesa, LuisCache, Daniele, Chileno, tiempo_de_es, Gex, Spanishskype, Gazpachuelo, etc... Julian Chive is also fluent but I am not sure if he is a native speaker....but you would do well to learn from his Spanish! 
2.Practise translating from Spanish into your native language, English so that you can see (observe and understand) how Spanish-speaking natives express their thoughts, ideas and feelings. Stories, songs and films can be a good way to learn this.
3 a) Remember that you are translating the idea / concept between the languages, not a literal 'word for word' translation; which seldom works!
b) English has many hidden traps for would be translators. Sentences can mean something different from what they appear at first sight!
What are you doing here? This can mean:
What (activity) are you doing? = ¿Qué haces aquí?
or ...
Why are you here? (What is your motive for being here?) = ¿Por qué estás aquí? o
¿Por qué has venido aquí? = Why have you come here?
The motive could be different from the activity in which they are currently involved!
I will add other examples as I remember them.
You have to translate the idea so ...
If you aré writing a sentence or a caption for Word or Picture of the Day you need to think what is my sentence in English really saying?!
4.Context determines meaning!
Fueron = They were (verb: ser) Fueron compañeros de trabajo = They were Co-workers (colleagues)
Fueron = They went (verb: ir) Ex: Fueron a la fiesta. = They went to the party.
The context shows us that this sentence means they went to the party.
I hope this helps : )
Corrijan mi español, por favor 
1 Answer
I am now learning with SD's Fluencia and one of your examples came up today, although it was one of the first things I'd learned with SD. Me gusta literally means "it is pleasing to me" so they say we should learn the English equivalent to the sentence, rather than the literal meaning. This is a good thing in my mind. I would never walk up to an English speaker and say, "such-and-such is pleasing to me," rather than, "I like such-and-such." I would get some weird looks. lol
Many thanks, Feliz. I will keep all four of your pointers in mind as they are very helpful! 
