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i have a little problem with "Wir wissen, dass es schwierig ist, aber bitte übersetze NICHT wortwörtlich!" - "We know it's hard, but don't translate word by word.", which is shown here http://tatoeba.org/deu/activiti...late_sentences
this may keep people from looking for a good mix of literal translation, transport the meaning and sounding natural.
perhaps something like "We know it is hard, but try to find a translation that is as literal as possible while still transporting the meaning and sounding natural."
after all, word-by-word-translations are the best - given that they sound natural in both languages.
I agree.
I have to disagree. Naturalness is not a boolean value — sentence can be more natural or less natural. Some sentences are more natural, some are less.
The idea is to find the most natural way of saying something.
IMHO the original structure of the sentence should never influence the choice of the translation.
The problem is that word-for-word translations hardly ever sound natural. I completely agree with Demetrius. In Chomsky's terms, it's the deep structure you have to examine. The surface structure of the original sentence is entirely irrelevant. If you don't stick to this rule, you will inevitably produce unnatural sentences.
i totally agree with "The idea is to find the most natural way of saying something."
my point is that mostly there are multiple ways of translating a sentence to a natural sounding counterpart. of those sentences some will be more close to a word-by-word-translation, some less so. thus, by _only_ saying that people should not translate word-for-word, one does on the one hand keep them from adding unnatural sentences but on the other hand to some degree encourage people not to stick to what the original sentence said. i stick to my point here:
word-by-word-translations are the best - given_that_they_sound_natural_in_both_languages.
some examples: http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/227 - should be "Me gusta _bien_ ..." in spanish and "I relish/fancy candlelight." in english. or the german sentence should be "Ich mag Kerzenlicht."
http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/613652 - either "Nancy kann keine Lüge erzählt haben." or "Nancy cannot have lied."
http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/54622 either "Hazlo de esta manera." or "Do it like this."/"Mache es so."
all the existing translations are natural, but could be closer to the original - while still being natural sentences in both languages.
i hope, i´ve made a bit clearer what i mean. word-for word translations that don´t sound natural aren´t of any use. but one could put that in better words.
as i´ve just been told, "Me gusta bien" no existe en español...my bad teacher´s fault.
nonetheless the "gern" from the german sentence does not appear in neither the english nor the spanish version.
I think I see what BraveSentry is saying, and I agree. Given naturalness of sentence 1 == naturalness of sentence 2 and meaning of 1 == meaning of 2, the next criterion to decide which is better is heavily linked to similarity of sentence structure/rhythm/style (where word-for-word has an automatic advantage).
True for related languages. But for unrelated languages, I'm not sure whether one can dissociate meaning from structure or structure from meaning. I mean the structure should come automatic-ly with the meaning.
This is pretty abstract, but in unrelated languages the structure is more block-by-block than word-by-word, I would say. Although there are some cases where word-by-word nails it (e.g. 好久不见 and "long time no see").
I'd like to point out that this is not the first time this issue has been raised. In case anyone is seriously interested in translation theory, I highly recommend Jeremy Munday's "Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications".
http://www.amazon.com/Introduci...1415831&sr=8-1
I similarly disagree. Often the best translation between related languages happen to be word-for-word translations of one another, but this is an artefact and not a value to measure the quality of a translation by.
The point of uttering sentences is to convey a message. Translate its meaning, not the words used.
to make a long story shorter again: "We know it's difficult, but do NOT translate word for word!" may mislead people to translate _very_ freely.
i´d rather say "Be sure to translate as accurately as possible. If you think your translation does not sound natural or does not entirely transport the meaning of the original sentence, please reformulate it, ask for help or add the sentence and leave a comment to have it reviewed." or something similar.
Oh, I may have misunderstood you. Personally I think it's quite clear, but it may be worth pre-empting a misunderstanding.
How about something like: "Sentences must match in meaning and tone. Try to think how the same person would say the same thing in a different language given a comparable situation/audience. It's often difficult to get the right balance, but be careful not to translate a sentence too literally/word-for-word."
I think it's worth mentioning the word-for-word bit because my impression is that people have a tendency (I've also caught me doing this) to translate too literally.
We could also mention a few related tags:
* Literal Translation
* loose translation
* localised translation
* Adapted Translation
* cmt on translation
and even
* translation challenge
* hard to translate
* translated wordplay
* translated idiom
* joke translation
* translated lyric
* translated-proverb
* translated proverb
* translated-quote
(ough... time to work on these again)
Lots of good examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability
yep, the word-for-word bit should be mentioned. but to have it as the only hint to what kind of translations one should do, seems not enough to me.
conerning the tags: yep, they´re useful, but only trusted users and mods can apply them to a sentence.
How about:
"We know it's hard, but don't translate word by word unless the word by word translation sounds natural."
?
I think we should rather go for a more positive definition of what is a "good translation". I guess it depends on what you want to achieve with that text.
It's mostly a little tip for people who are new to translations, because when you are not used to translations, it's a typical mistake to translate too literally.
In any case, I want the message to be short enough to be read and understood within ~5 seconds by an average reader because we know that the longer the message is, the less likely people are going to read it.
so...how about replacing the "About translations" by "IMPORTANT"?
and how ´bout "Please only add translations that sound natural to you."?
IMHO "Don't add word-by-word translations" is easier to understand than "...add translations that sound natural...".
it´s both easier to understand and easier to misunderstand as "The meaning is not important, as long as your translation says some things similar to the original sentence."