Not a courtesan prepared to translate (8)
I believe the answer is:
construe
'to translate' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'not a courtesan prepared' is the wordplay.
'not' is a deletion indicator.
'prepared' is an anagram indicator.
'courtesan' with 'a' taken out is 'courtesn'.
'courtesn' is an anagram of 'CONSTRUE'.
(Other definitions for construe that I've seen before include "Read - trounces (anag)" , "Understand" , "Make sense of -- trounces (anag)" , "Interpret in a particular way" , "Analyse language" .)