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Subject:Re: Translating the Ideas, Not the Words From:Gene Ledbetter <gledbet -at- HEARTLAND -dot- BRADLEY -dot- EDU> Date:Thu, 17 Aug 1995 18:03:33 CDT
I agree with Bill Burns:
> The conceptual framework embedded in the language cannot
> be translated on a word by word basis.
I used to do freelance technical translations (Russian ->
English), and more recently I have edited translations
(Japanese -> English). The concepts and images provoked by
idiomatic statements in the source language are re-recorded
(ideally) as idiomatic statements in the target language.
Of interest to some of you is the fact that the ideal
situation, in which a translator translates into his native
language, does not always obtain, and the results are often
very far from idiomatic when a foreigner must translate into
our Holy Tongue.
In particular, my contacts in Japan sent me translations
into English that had been done by Japanese translators. Not
only did I need to translate the translations into idiomatic
English, I needed to translate them into idiomatic technical
English (N.B., technical editors), because the non-technical
Japanese translators did not always know the English names
of such exotic things as disk drives, and they sometimes
translated the words literally.
