Translation as a Negotiation Process

The whole issue of translation is something I find continually fascinating, so much so that I've recently started reading Umberto Eco's book "Mouse or Rat; Translation as Negotiation" He argues that translation is not just "typing in a foreign language"; translators are forced to continually examine, interpret, evaluate and - as Eco puts it - negotiate with a text in order to craft a translation that conveys not just the "meaning" but the intent of the original. The term negotiation is an interesting one here; for example he uses an online translator to change the heading: "The works of Shakespeare" which is rendered as "Gli impianti di Shakespeare" which when returned to English becomes "The plants of Shakespeare." Clearly with a bilingual Italian or English speaker a more authentic translation would be produced. This concept of distance between languages reminds me of  when I was living in Spain as each time I stepped outside of my front door it became an adventure as I was one of only a handful of English speakers in the town so I had to operate in a foreign language. I felt as though I was wearing a cloak; something over me but not truly me. Yet paradoxically I felt a sense of liberation; being set free from the cultural landscape of one language and exploring the vast plains of another. It is the joy then of exploring these great plains that is the joy of translation.