Untranslatable words are the ones that don’t have any word-to-word translation in the target language. For instance, the Portuguese word saudade which means deep emotional longing has no direct translation in English. Also, many phrases like idioms, metaphors and jokes that are tied to a particular culture are untranslatable in many instances.
Interpreters have only one minute or less to decide how to best explain the meaning of a word or phrase. However, translators have one major advantage over interpreters i.e. time. There are few Strategies that could help interpreters to translate the untranslatable words.
How to Interpret Untranslatable Words?
When the word is untranslatable, interpreters still need to find a way to translate it. The express interpretation services in Gurgaon can help in ways to orally translate difficult words. However, we have listed down two techniques that interpreters can easily adopt for interpreting sessions. Have a look:
- Circumlocution: One of the easiest ways to interpret the untranslatable word is to know the meaning in the target language. It is a useful method when an exact translation is required like during a court hearing or other type of legal interpreting session. Many medical interpreters might want to use this method as medical interpreting needs to be accurate.
- Adaption: When one word has a cultural meaning, then adaptation would help interpreters convey the meaning in the target language. For instance, the Japanese phrase tamago gata no kao could be easily tanslated into the English word “sweetheart”. However, when this phrase is literally translated it means “eggs with eyes’ ‘ that doesn’t make sense in English. Thus, the word sweetheart conveys a similar meaning.
These two techniques are valuable interpretation strategies for difficult words. However, there are other methods for written translation like calque, which are not easily adapted by the interpreters. This method involves breaking down the word or phrase into different elements and translating them one by one. This technique is useful in literal translation where more context is required. However, this method helps in maintaining the original tone of the source language.
These techniques might be useful to interpreters when they are simply unable to interpret a phrase or a word. They are useful in instances where the interpretation can impact the outcome of a situation, such as a witness’s testimony in a court case.
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