Common Translation Problems And How To Avoid Them
Several tips on translation for non-professionals
Content translated from a different language may bring lots of fun and lots of headache. When you are the one involved with the translation, it brings mostly the latter. Of course, there are certain ways to help it.
To clarify, I’m not talking about professional translation of legal or technical documents. There are lots of opportunities beyond this scope, especially for those who speak English as a second language. Even more so for those involved with marketing. Being one of those people, I’ve faced certain common problems and learned certain ways to solve them. Here are several tips I came up with.
Be Careful With Machine Translation
Machine translation is probably the reason behind a whole genre of funny pictures where signs or menu items are poorly translated into English.
I’m happy to admit that machine translation software is getting better, especially with all the progress in natural language processing. Yet, you shouldn’t rely too much on it.
A program, even a sophisticated one, simply maps the words to abstract concepts. You type in a word, the program returns you its version of translation. But for now, programs can’t flawlessly handle all the complexities of a language. There are homonyms and synonyms to keep in mind, as well as a whole lot of idioms and subtle cultural nuances that make things even more messed up. All this, while trying to translate words or phrases out of context.
I’m not saying that translation programs are useless. They are just misused way too often.
There are several more or less simple ways to make the most out of a machine translation:
- Use short and simple sentences. Extra words and complex structures will only confuse the program and obstruct the meaningful part.
- Avoid idioms and abbreviations. There are dedicated dictionaries for idioms and slang you can use instead. When translating abbreviations, I usually go to Wikipedia and look up relevant articles in the target language, then google it to double check.
- If the result you get from the software looks suspicious, try translating the word or phrase in the target language back into the original. If you get gibberish, try different words or phrasing.
- If you are still in doubt, put your translation result into Google and see how this particular sequence of words is used, if used at all. This works best for short phrases.
Check Your Numbers and Measures
We tend to think about numbers as a sort of universal language. This is not entirely the case.
Different cultures use different ways to write down numbers. In Europe a comma represents a decimal point, while thousands are separated by a period, so 1.000 is one thousand and 1,000 is one. In the US 1.000 is one and 1,000 is one thousand.
Another thing to consider is the conversion between metric and imperial. Regardless of what system you end up using, make sure your numbers are correct. Even people in the aerospace industry had to learn this lesson the hard way with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
Time and dates are also represented differently. While the difference between 12-hour and 24-hour systems is easy to account for, I sometimes have to double check a date like 04/10/2019. In the US it would mean April 10th, 2019, while in the rest of the world it is the 4th of October, 2019.
Be Aware of Linguistic and Cultural Specifics
There are myriads of nuances in every language. Native English speakers just know that there’s a big green crocodile and not a green big crocodile. For others the order of adjectives may not be as obvious, even if they know the language reasonably well. In fact, the order all the other words in a sentence is also tricky and specific to each particular language. You have to account for a whole lot of things, but most of those naturally come along when you learn the language.
But there are cultural specifics that are rarely taught in schools. When you try to use some fancy metaphors or seemingly ubiquitous symbols from your culture, there’s almost always a catch. A stork delivering a baby is a normal symbol in Europe or in the US, but it will look weird for people whose folklore doesn’t have stories about storks delivering small children to parents.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to get into these specifics, unless you are well familiar with the culture in question. You have to double check the symbols, metaphors, and even jokes you localize for another culture. The best way is, of course, to ask a native person. But if there’s nobody around to ask, you can at least do a bit of research.
Google Everything, Then Google It Again
This is the most important and blatantly obvious part.
Everything I saw on the numerous lists of “The Most Hilarious Translation Fails” could’ve been avoided by simply googling it. You can find anything on the internet.
The point is to go and look things up.
