The translation basis

It's only too true that translation is not just about replacing words with words.

For example, just run the above sentence through Babelfish from English into Dutch and back again. You really do get, "It's only too where's that the translation is not only concerning replaced of words with words." Like, what on Earth?

This blog is especially for all you people who aspire to greater translation-related ambitions. Its centrepiece is a short paragraph on Racine, the famous French playwright, translated from French into English. Rather than translating sentence-by-sentence or anything like that, I purposely kept my translation as different from the original as possible while ensuring that it would convey the exact same information as the original and nothing but. By the way, I think that you will agree that the translated English version looks like it was originally written in English; that there is nothing to suggest that it is a translation of an article written in a foreign language.

Original (taken from Wikipedia):

Le théâtre racinien
Le théâtre de Racine peint la passion comme une force fatale qui détruit celui qui en est possédé. On retrouve ici les théories jansénistes : soit l'homme a reçu la grâce divine, soit il en est dépourvu, rien ne peut changer son destin, il est condamné dès sa naissance. Réalisant l'idéal de la tragédie classique, le théâtre racinien présente une action simple, claire, dont les péripéties naissent de la passion même des personnages.

My translation:

Racine theatre

The theatrical works of Racine depict Jansenist themes i.e. either a man is blessed with divine grace or he lacks it; nothing can alter his destiny; he is cursed from birth. It suggests that passion is a fatally destructive force that will destroy whomever it possesses. The theatrical works of Racine, conforming to the ideals of classical tragedy, are typically characterised by events that are simple and clear; the events that take place stem from the very passion of the characters.