The difficulty of translating between languages

[snousle]

I kinda knew this, but the way it's explained here really brings it home. You can't just translate sentences in isolation. Instead, you pretty much have to know the whole story behind the sentence before you can convey it accurately in another language. It makes me wonder how those simultaneous translators at the UN can function at all.

Let me

Comments

[danthered]

I always temper statements with "I read that..." or "He said that..." or "It could be that..." if it's not something I have first-hand knowledge of. Just because I want to avoid even the possibility of misinforming anyone.

Good god, man, are you mad‽ You do realise this is the internet, right?

[dhpbear]

I always temper statements with "I read that..." or "He said that..." or "It could be that..." if it's not something I have first-hand knowledge of.

Isn't this roughly the equivalent of Fock Snooze's "Some people say..." :)

[snousle]

"Some say that Bill Clinton is just a space lizard wearing a rubber mask!" <--- TRUTH

[jstregyr]

Bob Dole, too!
http://meblogwritegood.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/screen-shot-2012-01-13-at-11-55-34-am.png

[muckefuck]

I've mentioned many times before that I have a tremendous amount of respect for simultaneous interpreters. I've only been forced to do it a handful of times in my life and it is exhausting.

At least in the case of the UN, the context and register is pretty much a given: it's all diplomats making formal statements about politics. It's got to be the more casual conversations at cocktail parts and the like that are the real nightmare. Was that sarcastic? Is she talking about something that happened or that she'd like to see happen? Is that a joke to break the tension? Or is it a deliberate insult calculated to raise it?

[muckefuck]

Oh, and incidentally, the Turkish phenomenon referred to is called evidentiality. People's first reaction to learning of it is almost always, "That would be so handy!" But speak to anyone whose native language grammaticalises it and they'll tell you people use it to lie as easily as we do.

You might be interested in the conlang project Láadan. One of its more interesting grammatical features is a robust array of evidential particles.

[bikerbaer]

I straddle two languages every day, German and English. Often when I'm listening to the radio or watching a news story in German, Gary will ask me what they are talking about. If I watch the WHOLE segment, it's much easier to summarize afterwards than giving a simultaneous interpretation, which I'm quite capable of - but it is EXHAUSTING. Of course, once I leave the comfort of my areas of expertise in German or English, it becomes SO much harder to do. A lot has to do with anticipation of what comes next; in any language there are standard phrases and ways of saying things, and the context will often give you enough tips to actually know the words that may follow before they are spoken. It's almost like in English when someone correctly finishes your sentences for you. Of course, interpreters will hold onto these possible word-choices before the speaker actually says the words that are needed, but they are almost cued up and ready to go when they are spoken. That buffering of possible words is the thing that is most difficult,