What makes each language difficult? Can you help... Thread poster: TSUK
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TSUK
United Kingdom
French to English
I translate and interpret from French into English and know how important intonation is in determining meaning in the French language (always raise your tone at the end of a sentence). I am curious to know if other languages face particular problems with translation/interpretation?
[Edited at 2009-08-21 13:52 GMT]
| | | | | interpreting from German into Dutch | Aug 21, 2009 |
In German the verb always stands at the end of the sentence. Sometimes this can be difficult.
| | | | earlyesther
Local time: 07:50
Indonesian to English
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| translation/interpreting EN>ID | Aug 21, 2009 |
Hello,
I do translation and interpretation for language pair ENID.
The biggest problem is bahasa Indonesia has no tenses. We don't know past tense or future tense. All we know is present tense and to make it past or future we simply add the time signal such as "yesterday" or "tomorrow", etc. This shouldn't be a problem when we do EN>ID translation, but a HUGE problem for ID>EN.
Another problem will be the vocabulary limitation. Bahasa Indonesia doesn't have as mu... See more Hello,
I do translation and interpretation for language pair ENID.
The biggest problem is bahasa Indonesia has no tenses. We don't know past tense or future tense. All we know is present tense and to make it past or future we simply add the time signal such as "yesterday" or "tomorrow", etc. This shouldn't be a problem when we do EN>ID translation, but a HUGE problem for ID>EN.
Another problem will be the vocabulary limitation. Bahasa Indonesia doesn't have as much vocabulary as English. Therefore several English words can be translated to one Indonesian word. Here are some examples:
The food is not delicious = Makanan itu tidak enak
I'm sick = saya tidak enak badan
I smell a rat = perasaan saya tidak enak
I'm a bit reluctant to send that present = saya merasa tidak enak mengirimkan hadiah itu
totally different contexts but all are translated to "tidak enak". This is also the concern of foreigners who learn to speak bahasa here.
Next is the articles to show quantity. English shows quantity by adding the article "a/an" or the letter "s". In bahasa, we simply repeat the word to make it plural.
books (more than 1) = buku-buku
Students = "siswa-siswi" or "para siswa"
This becomes strange if we put it in a sentence:
Dogs are animals = anjing-anjing adalah binatang-binatang ------> this sentence is not fluent or "strange". Therefore we omit the plural form and make it singular:
Dogs are animals = anjing adalah binatang
There are many other cases I suppose but trust me, it's not difficult. It's interesting!
Regards,
Esther ▲ Collapse
| | | | Russell Jones 
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:50
Italian to English
Welcome to the site and to this forum Esther and thank you for your fascinating post.
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Alp Berker
United States
Local time: 20:50
Turkish to English
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In memoriam | Turkish and English, and vice versa | Aug 22, 2009 |
The sentence structure in Turkish is reversed compared to English. This also holds true for all Turkic Languages and some Asian Languages. When the sentence structure of a translation is not translated correctly, the sentence in either English or Turkish can sound strange or missing words. I always start by flipping the sentence first in my mind then I begin a translation.
Another difficult aspect is the agglutive nature of the language, where all the tenses etc. are at the end of the word... See more The sentence structure in Turkish is reversed compared to English. This also holds true for all Turkic Languages and some Asian Languages. When the sentence structure of a translation is not translated correctly, the sentence in either English or Turkish can sound strange or missing words. I always start by flipping the sentence first in my mind then I begin a translation.
Another difficult aspect is the agglutive nature of the language, where all the tenses etc. are at the end of the word. It makes for long words in Turkish. ▲ Collapse
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What makes Finnish a bit hard for the English native speaker - apart from the complicated grammar, the numerous inflexions, the alien lexis, the lack of articles, and the the lack of a future tense - is that thre is no gender whatsoever (e.g. no separate words for 'he' and 'she'), and this, together with the fact that utterances are often impersonalised, means that it is sometimes awfully problematic working out who is doing what to whom, and what sex they are (often necessary to know in English... See more What makes Finnish a bit hard for the English native speaker - apart from the complicated grammar, the numerous inflexions, the alien lexis, the lack of articles, and the the lack of a future tense - is that thre is no gender whatsoever (e.g. no separate words for 'he' and 'she'), and this, together with the fact that utterances are often impersonalised, means that it is sometimes awfully problematic working out who is doing what to whom, and what sex they are (often necessary to know in English).
cheers
spencer ▲ Collapse
| | | | Carla Selyer
Local time: 02:50
Member (2006)
Portuguese to English
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| Different numbering systems | Aug 22, 2009 |
I studied Japanese for a couple of years and it is also interesting in that way. What a great language, verbs at the end, and different numbering systems. Like we count in thousandths (1,000) but they count with four zeros (1,0000). What a task to translate this language! The counters are also interesting - a flat item is described in a different way to a round item - and there are several different 'counters'.
| | | | Carla Selyer
Local time: 02:50
Member (2006)
Portuguese to English
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| Monotony of tone when interpreting | Aug 22, 2009 |
TSUK wrote:
I translate and interpret from French into English and know how important intonation is in determining meaning in the French language (always raise your tone at the end of a sentence). I am curious to know if other languages face particular problems with translation/interpretation?
[Edited at 2009-08-21 13:52 GMT]
Interpretation requires such a high level of concentration, I wonder how other interpreters cope with this - it's like a sudden monotonous tone enters into your voice but you don't notice it. Is it possible to keep up with the speaking pace and at the same time maintain a constant tone of voice (non-monotonous!)? Is there a technique for that?
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TSUK
United Kingdom
French to English
TOPIC STARTER | Further French Facts about translation | Aug 23, 2009 |
Thank you for these interesting posts. I have also found that many older terms in French are completely renamed but the more modern terms kept the same. VCR = magnetoscope whereas DVD = DVD. I find when translating science the change is harder to spot DNA = ADN in french and lead = plomb but newer technologies such as microarray remain in English form (but not always).
[Edited at 2009-08-23 20:56 GMT]
| | | | Andrea Shah
United States
Local time: 20:50
Portuguese to English
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| Numbering systems | Aug 26, 2009 |
Carla Selyer wrote:
I studied Japanese for a couple of years and it is also interesting in that way. What a great language, verbs at the end, and different numbering systems. Like we count in thousandths (1,000) but they count with four zeros (1,0000). What a task to translate this language! The counters are also interesting - a flat item is described in a different way to a round item - and there are several different 'counters'.
I don't translate Hindi/Gujarati, but I live with some native speakers, and they always refer to numbers in lakh (100,000) and crore (10,000,000), and I'm constantly doing mental calculations (and then dividing by 50 for rupees, too!). Different numbering systems take some getting used to.
| | | | Stuart Milne
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:50
French to English
Spencer Allman wrote:
What makes Finnish a bit hard for the English native speaker - apart from the complicated grammar, the numerous inflexions, the alien lexis, the lack of articles, and the the lack of a future tense - is that thre is no gender whatsoever (e.g. no separate words for 'he' and 'she'), and this, together with the fact that utterances are often impersonalised, means that it is sometimes awfully problematic working out who is doing what to whom, and what sex they are (often necessary to know in English).
cheers
spencer
Spencer, great reply! This is just the sort of thing I am trying to find out.
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