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Translate words with multiple meanings

You can crash a car, the Stock Market, a party you weren’t invited to, or play cymbals together to make a sound. You can describe a flowering plant as a noxious weed or a more desirable garden flower. Maybe that plant is yellow, but your hair is blonde. You can create, but what do you mean when you use create? Are you building, constructing, erecting, composing or imagining? When you use the word human, are you talking about a man, a woman, a child, an adult, a single person, a father, a mother, a sister? Are you taking your money to the bank or sitting on the bank of a river? If you use the seemingly simple word “in”, how will you use it? Is it a preposition? Is it on or on the table? Maybe it’s an adverb where you put your shoes on? Or an adjective when you put the game in 20 minutes? The list is quite long for such a small word; You can be on call, on the roof, on cloud nine, on the edge, on fire, on purpose, or on the phone.

So many meanings, so little time, so many ways the translation can go wrong. It just can’t be translated without considering the meaning behind the words, the semantics. As we well know, translation based on one-to-one substitution is rarely acceptable and is never acceptable in this case. Here are some problems that you may have encountered in your work and some ways to solve them.

Find the meaning

Word meanings evolve over time as language evolves. The British word, molasses, now means molasses, but its definition was not always “a thick syrup produced by the refining of sugar.” It is derived from the ancient Greek word for the bite of a wild animal. The meaning was later expanded to refer to any injury. From there, it became the drug used to treat injuries. It then evolved to refer to the sweet substance that is added to medicine to make it taste better. The most recent version is one of the sweeteners we all know: molasses. It seems like a strange way to go, but the previous meanings of the word motivated its metamorphosis. Words develop and change, acquire meanings and lose them. What happens to a word in one language will not happen in exactly the same way in another. This adds complexity and difficulties to translations.

When the Spanish talk about fish that are swimming, they use fish, but if they catch that fish and cook it for dinner, they call it fish. In English, fish is fish, whether it is part of fish and chips or found in our lakes and streams.

Translators are faced with these dreaded multiple meanings all the time; that is why they need to have a deep understanding of both languages ​​and the ability to deal with differences in meaning that seem insignificant until they switch to the other language, something that no computer can do. It’s a job security for translators, really.

Paying attention to multiple meanings is especially important in marketing and advertising, where puns are often used and multiple meanings abound. Let’s take the word “power,” a favorite among pharmaceutical marketers. Imagine a headline “The Power to Change Your Life”, accompanied by a photo of an electrical cable. In the headline, the power of attorney is intended to indicate strength. But power also means electricity. Now consider other languages. The Spanish use the colloquial alternative to electricity or “lights”. Therefore, the double meaning would be lost in translation if the original title is used, unless of course your company is a lighting company with products so exceptional that they really change people’s lives.

Be specific … or not

Multiple meanings must be handled using semantic criteria, both general and specific. Knowing the general points of the topic, translators travel in the right direction, allowing them to choose how different words will be used in the target language. For example, the word “running” is generally known to indicate a faster pace than jogging. But what happens if a river runs dry, or someone runs a business, or a meeting gets dragged on, or someone runs over a man? Did you hit him with a car, speak against him, or hit him? Fortunately, most words and phrases don’t appear in isolation, so context clues can save the day.

Knowing whether the topic is generalized or industry-specific can mean the difference between calling a bus, a vehicle to transport multiple people from point A to point B, or a computer component that can be put on cards.

Consider the context

Being sensitive to the total context, your audience, and important details like regionalisms and culture is key. For example, “thank you” in Japanese depends on whether or not the person who was thanked was obligated to perform the service and how much effort they put into the service. In English we can say ‘thank you very much’ or ‘thank you very much’, but in the immensely educated culture of Japan, those two words are much more complex and convey many more meanings in different situations. It’s something to consider.

An example of how insensitive translation can have serious repercussions is the comment on the Cold War made in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev, head of the Soviet Union, who had been complaining about the United States. His nonchalant comment translated as “we will bury you.” This comment left an indelible and infamous mark on the minds of all Americans. Believing that communism was a superior system to capitalism and predicting that communism would last longer than capitalism, Khrushchev said something like: “Like it or not, we will be present at your funeral.” Assuming that the Russian word for “bury” could only be translated one way, such as “we will bury you”, it unnecessarily increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, perhaps unnecessarily prolonging the Cold War.

So, you see, multiple meanings are always present and important. Know how to use them well and be prepared for any instance that comes your way. And stay tuned for next month when we discuss how multiple meanings are by far the biggest reason computer translations fail (and always will) when it comes to accurate language translation.