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Types of Translation and Interpretation

General translation/interpretation is just what you think – the translation or interpretation of non-specific language that does not require any specialized vocabulary or knowledge. However, the best translators and interpreters read extensively in order to be up-to-date with current events and trends so that they are able to do their work to the best of their ability, having knowledge of what they might be asked to convert. In addition, good translators and interpreters make an effort to read about whatever topic they are currently working on. If a translator is asked to translate an article on organic farming, for example, he or she would be well served to read about organic farming in both languages in order to understand the topic and the accepted terms used in each language.

Specialized translation or interpretation refers to domains which require at the very least that the person be extremely well read in the domain. Even better is training in the field (such as a college degree in the subject, or a specialized course in that type of translation or interpretation). Some common types of specialized translation and interpretation are

• financial translation and interpretation
• legal translation and interpretation
• literary translation
• medical translation and interpretation
• scientific translation and interpretation
• technical translation and interpretation

Types of Translation:

Machine translation
Also known as automatic translation, this is any translation that is done without human intervention, using software, hand-held translators, online translators such as Babelfish, etc. Machine translation is extremely limited in quality and usefulness – learn more.

Machine-assisted translation
Translation that is done with a machine translator and a human working together. For example, to translate “honey,” the machine translator might give the options le miel and chéri so that the person could decide which one makes sense in the context. This is considerably better than machine translation, and some argue that it is more effective than human-only translation.

Screen translation
Translation of movies and television programs, including subtitling (where the translation is typed along the bottom of the screen) and dubbing (where the voices of native speakers of the target language are heard in place of the original actors).

Sight translation
Document in the source language is explained orally in the target language. This task is performed by interpreters when an article in the source language is not provided with a translation (such as a memo handed out at a meeting).

Localization
Adaptation of software or other products to a different culture. Localization includes translation of documents, dialog boxes, etc., as well as linguistic and cultural changes to make the product appropriate to the target country.

Types of Interpretation:

Consecutive interpretation (consec)
The interpreter takes notes while listening to a speech, then does his or her interpretation during pauses. This is commonly used when there are just two languages at work; for example, if the American and French presidents were having a discussion. The consecutive interpreter would interpret in both directions, French to English and English to French. Unlike translation and simultaneous interpretation, consecutive interpretation is commonly done into the interpreter’s A and B languages.

Simultaneous interpretation (simul)
The interpreter listens to a speech and simultaneously interprets it, using headphones and a microphone. This is commonly used when there are numerous languages needed, such as in the United Nations. Each target language has an assigned channel, so Spanish speakers might turn to channel one for the Spanish interpretation, French speakers to channel two, etc. Simultaneous interpretation should only be done into one’s A language.

EXERCISES FOR CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING

Suggestions for Preparing for the Test

Practice your ability to repeat sentences and paragraphs of varying lengths, from one to

fifty words. You are likely to find a number of sources for practice materials. For example, your

local court reporter’s office may be willing to let you have draft copies of actual transcripts, or

you may find practice materials on the World Wide Web. If necessary, you can ask friends and

family members to create samples of “question and answer” formatted transcripts. Say a

segment aloud in the source language (or have a friend or family member read the segment out

loud for you), then interpret that segment into the target language. Be sure to vary the lengths of

the utterances and practice until you are able, with the use of notes if you are trained in notetaking

skills, to interpret long passages.

For many interpreters, note taking is extremely beneficial in all modes of interpretation,

but especially in the consecutive mode. If you find that you benefit from note taking, develop an

efficient note-taking system in order to remember relevant names, dates, places, and figures. It is

often essential to develop this skill under the direction of an experienced interpreter or teacher.

However, the skill you develop will be your own personal method of note taking. Notes might

be recorded in the form of simple outlines, charges, diagrams, or graphs. Listing information in

the form of a diagram might be helpful while interpreting at a trial during which a particular

scenario is repeatedly mentioned. An effective note-taking system allows you to concentrate on

the ideas and concepts contained in the message, not on taking the notes. It is important to adopt

a strategy or strategies that work best for you.

Practice consecutive interpretation until you are able to accurately interpret transcripts

that are 850 to 900 words in length, with varying lengths of utterances, within a 20- to 22-minute

time frame.

Memorization Techniques for Consecutive Interpreting

1. How do you remember? Are you a visual or a verbal learner, neither, or both? If you

forget something you have heard, try to understand what prevented you from storing or

retrieving the information.

2. Your short-term memory capacity is normally limited to between five and nine bits of

information (units of memory), and your ability to recall depends on how well you can

organize what you have heard by finding patterns. Have someone read a series of seven

unrelated numbers to you. As soon as you are able to repeat the series accurately, try to

repeat it backwards. To do this, you must be able to retain the series in your short-term

memory.

3. Increase your analytical skills by reading a newspaper or magazine. After finishing each

story, try to summarize what you read in a single sentence. Do this in all your working

languages.

4. Try exercise 3 after listening to a news report or a radio or television talk show.

Summarize the main idea in a single sentence.

5. For the exercises below, have someone read a newspaper or magazine article into a

recorder or record talk or interview programs from the radio or television. Limit yourself

to nontechnical material. Do not record the news because the newscaster reads from a

prepared script. Record increasingly longer texts as your skills improve. You will only

repeat the information you hear in the same language and will not interpret it.

a. Listen to the passage without taking notes and try to repeat as much as possible.

b. Listen to the passage and write down keywords to help you remember the content.

Then repeat as much information as possible. Compare the results you achieved

with and without notes. Which worked best for you?

c. As you listen to the passage, try to condense it into a few meaningful units.

Organize the information into groups. For example, if a person were to list the

schools she had attended and the subjects she studied, you could group the

schools by location and the subjects studied by topic. Numbers can be grouped

the way people recite phone or social security numbers, in groups of two, three, or

four numbers, rather than as a string of unrelated numbers. Please note that when

interpreting testimony you should maintain the speaker’s work sequence as

spoken, except to accommodate the syntax of the target language.

d. Do not allow your opinions to color your rendition of a speaker’s words, even if

you have strong opinions about the subject matter. Pay close attention to your

reaction to the text while listening and maintain the same level of language

(register) as the speaker.

Note that improving your listening and memory skills is an ongoing and lifelong endeavor. As

you gain experience and confidence, your skills will improve.

What is Translation?

Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language — the source text — and the production, in another language, of a new, equivalent text — the target text, or translation.

Traditionally, translation has been a human activity, although attempts have been made to automate and computerize the translation of natural-language texts — machine translation — or to use computers as an aid to translation — computer-assisted translation.

The goal of translation is to establish a relation of equivalence of intent between the source and target texts (that is to say, to ensure that both texts communicate the same message), while taking into account a number of constraints. These constraints include context, the rules of grammar of both languages, their writing conventions, their idioms, and the like.

The term and the concept of “translation”

“Translation” is, etymologically, a “carrying across” or “bringing across”: the Latin translatio derives from transferre (trans, “across” + ferre, “to carry” or “to bring”). The modern European languages, Romance, Germanic and Slavic, have generally formed their own equivalent terms for this concept after the Latin model: after transferre or after the kindred traducere (“to lead across” or “to bring across”). Additionally, the Greek term for “translation,” metaphrasis (a “speaking across”), has supplied English with “metaphrase,” meaning a literal, or word-for-word, translation, as contrasted with “paraphrase” (a “saying in other words,” from the Greek paraphrasis).

Common misconceptions

Many newcomers to translation wrongly believe it is an exact science, and mistakenly assume a firmly defined one-to-one correlation exists between the words and phrases in different languages which make translations fixed, much like cryptography. In that vein, many assume all one needs to translate a given passage is to decipher between the languages using a translation dictionary. On the contrary, such a fixed relationship would only exist were a new language synthesized and continually synchronized alongside an existing language in such a way that each word carried exactly the same scope and shades of meaning as the original, with careful attention to preserve the etymological roots, assuming they were even known with certainty. In addition, if the new language were ever to take on a life of its own apart from such a strict cryptographic use, each word would begin to take on new shades of meaning and cast off previous associations, making any such synthetic synchronization impossible. As such, translation from that point on would require the disciplines described in this article. Suffice it to say, while equivalence is sought by the translators, less rigid and more analytical methods are required to arrive at a true translation.

There is also debate as to whether translation is an art or a craft. Literary translators, such as Gregory Rabassa in “If This Be Treason” argue convincingly that translation is an art, though he acknowledges that it is teachable. Other translators, mostly professionals working on technical, business, or legal documents, approach their task as a craft, one that can not only be taught but is subject to linguistic analysis and benefits from academic study. Most translators will agree that the truth lies somewhere between and depends on the text. A simple document, for instance a product brochure, can be quickly translated in many cases using simple techniques familiar to advanced language students. By contrast, a newspaper editorial, text of a speech by a politician, or book on almost any subject will require not only the craft of good language skills and research technique but also the art of good writing, cultural sensitivity, and communication.

Untranslatability

Untranslatability is a property of a text, or of any utterance, in one language, for which no equivalent text or utterance can be found in another language.

Contrary to popular belief, words are not either translatable or untranslatable. They are only words, and these words are more or less hard to translate depending on their nature and the translator’s skills.

Quite often, a text or utterance that is considered to be “untranslatable” is actually a lacuna, or lexical gap, that is to say that there is no one-to-one equivalence between the word, expression or turn of phrase in the source language and another word, expression or turn of phrase in the target language.

A translator, however, can resort to a number of translation procedures to compensate.

Translation procedures

The translation procedures that are available in cases of lacunae, or lexical gaps, include the following:

Adaptation

An adaptation, also known as a free translation, is a translation procedure whereby the translator replaces a social, or cultural, reality in the source text with a corresponding reality in the target text; this new reality would be more usual to the audience of the target text.

For example, in the Belgian comic book The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin’s trusty canine sidekick Milou, is translated as Snowy in English, Bobby in Dutch, and Struppi in German; likewise the detectives Dupond and Dupont become Thomson and Thompson in English, Jansen and Janssen in Dutch, Schultze and Schulze in German, Hernández and Fernández in Spanish, and 杜本 and 杜朋 (Dùběn and Dùpéng) in Chinese — the Spanish and Chinese examples not being quite so faithful translations since the pronunciation of the two names is different, and not just the spelling.

Similarly, when Quebec playwright Michel Tremblay adapted Gogol’s play Revizor (The Inspector General), as Le gars de Québec, he transposed the setting from Russia to his home province.

This is particularly notable in the translation of the names of Disney characters, as many names employ similar vocal sounds or puns (List of Disney characters’ names in various languages).

Adaptation is often used when translating poetry, works of theatre and advertising.

Borrowing

Borrowing is a translation procedure whereby the translator uses a word or expression from the source text in the target text holus-bolus.

Borrowings are normally printed in italics if they are not considered to have been naturalized in the target language.

Calque

Calque is a translation procedure whereby a translator translates an expression (or, occasionally, a word) literally into the target language, translating the elements of the expression word for word.

Compensation

Compensation is a translation procedure whereby the translator solves the problem of aspects of the source text that cannot take the same form in the target language by replacing these aspects with other elements or forms in the source text.

For example, many languages have two forms of the second person pronoun: an informal form and a formal form (the French tu and vous, the Spanish tú and usted, the German du and Sie, to name but three), while most modern-day dialects of English no longer recognize the T-V distinction, and have retained the you form only. Hence, to translate a text from one of these languages to English, the translator may have to compensate by using a first name or nickname, or by using syntactic phrasing that are viewed as informal in English (I’m, you’re, gonna, dontcha, etc.)

Paraphrase

Paraphrase, sometimes called periphrasis, is a translation procedure whereby the translator replaces a word in the source text by a group of words or an expression in the target text.

An extreme example of paraphrase can be found in the BBC reports of June 22, 2004 of the identification of the “most untranslatable” word. The word chosen is Ilunga, a word supposedly from a language in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The BBC article states that “Ilunga means ‘a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time’.”

Incidentally, the word Ilunga is of questionable provenance, as some Congolese (notably the Congo government) claim that it is simply a name, without additional connotations. See the article Ilunga for more information.

Another example of paraphrase is the Portuguese word saudade, which is often translated at a loss into English as “missing a person who is gone”.

Translator’s note

A translator’s note is a note (usually a footnote or an endnote) added by the translator to the target text to provide additional information pertaining to the limits of the translation, the cultural background or any other explanations.

Some translation exams allow or demand such notes. Despite this, resorting to notes is normally seen as a failure by many translation professionals.

Examples

In the case of translating the English word have to Hebrew, Arabic, Finnish or Irish, some difficulty may be found. There is no specific verb with this meaning in these languages. Instead, for “I have X” they use a combination of words that mean X is to me. In the case of Irish, this phrasing has passed over into Hiberno-English. A similar construction occurs in Russian: here, the verb is replaced by a phrase that, literally, means at me/you/he/she/they there is. (Russian does have a word that means “to have”: иметь (imet’) — but it is rarely used by Russian speakers in the same way English speakers use the word have).

Another example is family members. English has different words for nephew, niece, and cousin (note the use of cousin for both sexes). Romance languages do distinguish between the latter, but not always between the former: for example Italian cugino and cugina for cousin (male) and cousin (female), but nipote (nephew/niece) for both genders. Moreover, nipote can also mean grandchild (a distinction between male and female can however be made by adding the male or female article before the noun). Dutch on the other hand does distinguish between gender: neef (male) and nicht (female), but it does not have different terms for nephew and cousin. That is, both a son of a sibling and a son of an uncle are called neef. Sibling is another word for which German does have an expression (geschwister) but Dutch not.

Conversely, English is entirely lacking some grammatical categories. For example, there is no simple way in English to contrast Finnish kirjoittaa (continuing, corresponding to English to write) and kirjoitella (a regular frequentative, “to occasionally write short passages at a time”). Another example for a tricky English construct would be: How would you ask a boy who has several brothers “which” (or “which-th”) son of his parents he is, such that his reply would be something like: “I am the third son”? (“Which in order of number?”) This is a straightforward construct in some other languages, which have an exact word for “which-th”, such as Finnish mones, Latin quotus, German wievielte, or Dutch hoeveelste. Further examples derive from the fact that English has fewer tenses than Romance languages. As in Latin, Italian has for example two distinct declined past tenses, where io fui (passato remoto) and io ero (passato prossimo) both mean I was, the former indicating a concluded action in the (remote) past, and the latter an action that holds some connection to the present. The “passato remoto” is for example used for narrative history (for example novels). However, the difference is nowadays also partly geographic. In the north of Italy (and standard Italian) the “passato remoto” is rarely used in spoken language, whereas in the south it does and often takes the place of the “passato prossimo”.

Another instance is the Russian word пошлость /posh-lost’/. This noun roughly means a mixture of banality, commonality and vulgarity. Vladimir Nabokov mentions it as one of hardest Russian words to translate precisely into English.

Another well-known example comes from Portuguese or Spanish verbs ser and estar, both translatable as to be (see Romance copula). However estar is used only with temporary conditions, while ser is used with permanent conditions. Sometimes this information is not very relevant for the meaning of the whole sentence, and the translator will ignore it, some other times it can be retrieved from context. When none of these applies, the translator will usually use a paraphrase or simply add words that can convey that meaning. The following example comes from Portuguese:

“Não estou bonito, eu sou bonito.”

Literal translation: “I am not (temporarily) handsome, I am (permanently) handsome.”

Adding words: “I am not handsome today, I am always handsome.”

Paraphrase: “I don’t just look handsome, I am handsome.”

Ancient Greek φθάνω (phthánō) approximately translates like “I do something before someone else realises that I’m doing it”.

German, especially colloquial German, has a wealth of small words, usually adverbs, that are excruciatingly difficult to translate as they do not have a grammatical function, but rather convey a sense in which the message is meant to be understood. The most infamous example perhaps is doch, which roughly means “don’t you realize that…?”, or “in fact it is so, though someone is denying it”. Others are eben (roughly: “in a natural way and without much afterthought”, or, just as roughly “That’s what I said all along.”), or even mal (from einmal, roughly meaning “when it’s convenient”).

Languages that are extremely different from each other, like English and Chinese, need their translations to almost be adaptations. Chinese has no tenses per se, only three “aspects”. Also concepts like brother, sister, grandmother and grandfather don’t really exist in Chinese, where they are always more specific: the words for brother and sister always specify whether it is the older or younger sibling, and the words for a specific grandparent specify whether it is the paternal or maternal one. Again, a concept such as sister that would include both older and younger sisters does not exist. Also, the English verb to be does not have a direct equivalent in Chinese. In an English sentence where to be leads to an adjective (“It is blue”), there is no to be in Chinese. (There are no adjectives in Chinese, instead there are “status verbs” that don’t need an extra verb.) If it states a location, the verb “zài” (在) is used, as in “We are in the house”. And in most other cases, the verb “shì” (是) is used, as in “I am the leader.” Any sentence that requires a play on those different meanings will not work in Chinese.

Poetry and puns

The two areas which most nearly approach total untranslatability are poetry and puns; poetry is difficult to translate because of its reliance on the sounds (for example, rhymes) and rhythms of the source language; puns, and other similar semantic wordplay, because of how tightly they are tied to the original language.

That being said, many of the translation procedures discussed here can be used in these cases. For example, the translator can compensate for an “untranslatable” pun in one part of a text by adding a new pun in another part of the translated text.

Hofstadter’s book Le Ton beau de Marot is devoted to the issues and problems of translation, with particular emphasis on the translation of poetry.

Foreign objects

Objects unknown to a culture can actually be easy to translate. For example, in Japanese, wasabi わさび is a plant (Wasabia japonica) used as a spicy Japanese condiment. Traditionally, this plant only grows in Japan. It would be unlikely that someone from Brazil (for example) would have a clear understanding of it. However, the easiest way to translate this word is to borrow it. Or you can use a similar vegetable’s name to describe it. In English this word is translated as wasabi or Japanese horseradish. In Chinese, people can still call it wasabi by its Japanese sound, or pronounce it by its Kanji characters, 山葵 (pinyin: shān kúi). Horseradish is not usually seen in Eastern Asia; people may parallel it with mustard. Hence, in some places, yellow mustard refers to imported mustard sauce; green mustard refers to wasabi.

The list by Today Translations

Words hardest to translate (Today Translations, June 2004) was a list of words reported as being the world’s most difficult words to translate. The British company surveyed 1,000 linguists to create the list. According to Jurga Zilinskiene, head of Today Translations, the difficulty in translating the words identified by the survey is not finding the meaning of these words, but conveying their cultural connotations and overtones. Not all of the words on the list were legitimate. Some of them turned out to be mistakes and hoaxes.

The following list presents the words hardest to translate as claimed by Today Translations. Daggers (†) lead to the definition of the word in the wiktionary project. The first is the absolute list, containing the ten words hardest to translate all over the world, independent of linguistic context:

1. Ilunga: Bantu language of Tshiluba for “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.” However, there is no independent evidence that the word actually means what the translation company claims. When asked for confirmation by one reporter, representatives of the Congo government recognized the word only as a personal name. Furthermore, the translation company failed to respond to inquiries regarding the survey.
2. Shlimazl (שלימזל): Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person. (Cf. Schlemiel). (NOTE. In colloquial Italian, it is very common to use the word sfigato with exactly the same meaning, in Dutch and German one says pechvogel[1], also used in colloq. German is the word Schlamassel, which refers to an unlucky situation. In Spanish, the word gafe has a similar meaning, though it is also used for defining a person who consistently brings bad luck to those around him as well as himself.)
3. Radiostukacz: Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. It is not a real word, only a mistake or a hoax.
4. Naa (なぁ or なー): Japanese word originating in the Kansai (関西) area of Japan, especially in Osaka (大阪府), to emphasize statements or agree with someone.
5. Altahmam (التهمام) †: Arabic for a kind of deep sadness.
6. Gezellig †: Dutch for companiable or convivial (a person), cosy (room, house, chair, etc.), friendly (atmosphere), pleasant (evening spent with friends). Similarly, German gesellig, having the first and the last two meanings. Yiddish heymish is close, as well.
7. Saudade †: Portuguese for a certain type of longing.
8. Sellaadhiroopavar †: Tamil for a certain type of truancy.
9. Pochemuchka (почемучка): Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions (usually a child). (NOTE: The Portuguese word perguntador has a similar meaning.)
10. Klloshar †: Albanian for loser. Could be derived from French clochard (tramp).

The following list shows the ten English words supposed by the same company to be the hardest to translate:

1. Plenipotentiary †
2. Gobbledegook †
3. Serendipity †
4. Poppycock †
5. Googly †
6. Spam †
7. Whimsy †
8. Bumf †
9. Chuffed †
10. Kitsch †

However, plenipotentiary has perfect equivalents in several Romance languages (for example, Portuguese plenipotenciário and French plénipotentiaire), as it is common with words of a Latin origin. Several other languages use a direct calque from Latin; for example, Finnish has täysivaltainen, and German Bevollmächtigte. Serendipity has originated equivalents in some other languages (for example, Portuguese serendipicidade, and Dutch serendipiteit). The claim that poppycock is particularly untranslatable is unsubstantiated. Spam has somehow become an international word, keeping its English form (originally a trademarked brand name anyway, which normally does not get translated). Kitsch is itself a German word that has spread to many other languages and is still in common use in the German-speaking countries.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia