This handbook is grounded in a simultaneous acceptance of assumption (1) and rejection of assumption (2). There is no substitute for practical experience, and translator training programs should continue to provide their students with as much of it as they can. But there are ways of accelerating that process that do not simply foster bad work habits.
The premise of this handbook is, however, that in the professional world slow, painstaking, analytical learning is the exception rather than the rule – and should be in the academic world of translator training as well. All humans learn better, faster, more effectively, more naturally, and more enjoyably through rapid and holistic subliminal channels. Conscious, analytical learning is a useful check on more efficient learning channels; it is not, or at least it should not be, the only or even main channel through which material is presented.