Anyone who has ever tried to translate from one language to another will certainly understand the degree of difficulty involved in language translations. For instance, how would you translate the expression "kick the bucket" into another language? Would you simply translate it literally? Most probably, the answer is "No". Surely, word- for- word translations can sometimes result in a meaningless and inconsistent translation for the target audience. There are times, however, when this is possible to do depending on the language and sentence structure.
The list of difficult words and expressions doesn't end here! Translation can be a tricky process, especially when it comes to global marketing. This is because a lot of advertising slogans and material have double meaning or use the "play on words" approach, therefore translators must acknowledge local colloquialisms and be familiar with idioms in both languages.
I consider translating to be as challenging as solving a cube puzzle. It forces one to use logic, reason and decision-making to find the right combination. It is a challenging task to translate a word or expression that does not exist in the other language. Although dictionaries are great tools that provide us with a decent amount of lexical information, they can only offer us solutions based on individual words rather than providing us with the differences in word order or sequence between the two languages. Translators must therefore decode the puzzle, in this case from one language to another, in order to transmit the message to the intended audience in the target language. Another important aspect to take into account when doing translations is to determine who your target audience is. For instance, think about whether your project should aim at a global rather than a regional market. This is very important as marketing translations should reflect the culture and lifestyle of the group of people you want to reach.
As you can see, there are a lot of elements to consider before one can start translating. Bilingualism is a crucial condition for translation but does it stand for proficiency? Being a bilingual itself is not synonym for being able to translate in a precise way. Apart from having a domain knowledge of grammar and syntax, technical knowledge plays also a vital role when translating technical documents such as software, automotive or consumer electronics to ensure that the meaning of the original text is preserved without contracting the author's intentions and at the same time maintaining it readable in the target language.
Caterine Apruzzese is a business consultant and the Founder of Fresh Translation, a translation company specialised in Latin languages, technical and commercial documents.
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