How much meaning is lost in translation?

Hi Sarah, 

It depends on the type of text you are dealing with, when it comes to legal context, you can not afford to lose any meaning, everything matters. Even if you do not understand everything, you still need to include all. I know this is difficult to grasp but it is easier when practiced. 

for other types of translations, the meaning you transfer should be relevant to the audience 

example: if I am translating university degree starts with "بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم", it is irrelevant to translated to English as "in the name of Allah the most gracious the most merciful" because the English audience are more likely to be Non-Muslims and this has nothing to do with them especially that deleting this sentence will not affect the purpose of the certificate and the situation is the same other way. 

My point of view is that Translator, or good one, can decide on this matter but I think, as much as translation is more about "transmeaning" than "transwordings", the Perfect translator, if any, has to translate it all meaning-wise, and to sacrifice word for meaning not the other way around. 

wish this is helpful. 

When you work with a Subject Matter Expert, you worry less. I believe the translation should be proofread twice by the translator - after the initial draft - one for content (to compare with the source text to make sure that no ideas have been lost) and one for style (to make sure the target text reads well - no funny, ridiculous, verbatim sentences that carry no or little meaning). One last note, I am always amazed how an important source text is circulated among specialists, even PhDs to make sure it reads well, then a junior translator who is not a subject matter expert is expected to deliver......

first of all it depends on the languages translated, as there is specific words that cannot be literally translated from one language to another. But it all depends on the translator brilliance in which one can bring the closest meaning into the other language.

It depends on the translator and their knowledge of the topic and the language. You can make huge mistakes if you do not understand the topic you are translating. All documents should be reviewed by a second person once finalized. 

None , it is possible to give the exact meaning for each sentence 

It depends on the knowledge of the translator of both Languages and his cultural background but these is no perfect Translation and something must be lost 

In my experience, not much. It depends on the knowledge of the translator and his/her passion for doing things in the most possible accurate manner.

I  do not possess any data to confirm the fact.

When something is translated into another language, and sometimes translated back into the original language, and because of differences of the languages some of the original meaning is lost. 

Art of translation is: 

- Do not loos meaning

- Do not change any thing 

- Translate what you see 

When Dr Droubi wanted to translate the works of Leo Tolstoy, he went and lived there where Tolstoy used to live for a while in order to absorb the spirit of the words which were the means to transfer Leo's thoughts and ideas to us. Taking into consideration that Dr Droubi had translated the works from Latin, one can notice that they were among the best versions of translation of the above mentioned works. Thus it can become easy to recognise both the strong and weak points of any translation and from any particular language to another; it is the context, and I would rather say it is the spirit of the text no matter how scientific or literary it might be. A well-established knowledge of translation could lead the translator to tranfer as much as possible of the subject under study to the reader. On the other hand, there is no doubt that there is no single translator that can deliver the complete full meaning of a text due to the simple fact that states very plainly that there is this privacy in each language that no one can trumple.

You don’t speak English, but you have to attend conferences and read documents in English for work. What do you do? Rely on translation? Wrong! Translation is a fine short-term solution, but what many people don’t realize is just how much meaning and information is lost when translating from one language to another.

For example, look what got lost in translation for these multinational companies:

– An advertising campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water in Italy translated tonic into toilet.

– A car manufacturer’s promotion in Belgium stated that its car had a body by Fisher. But as translated into Flemish, it read, corpse by Fisher.

– A Japanese company sold knives in the United States with this warning: Caution: Blade extremely sharp. Keep out of children.

– When an importer translated Made in Turkey into French, he wrote, Fabrique en Dinde. Dinde means turkey in French, but it’s the bird, not the country! The country is Turquie.

Every language has a unique grammar system as well as thousands of word meanings and connotations. Just think how many times you ask for clarification when speaking your own language! Now imagine how much you miss when you rely on an interpreter to translate English into your language.

Translation is an art. Even the best translators aren’t a guarantee you’ll understand a language’s nuances. For example, books and poetry that are extremely popular in their original language can be harshly criticized in other languages simply because of bad translations.

Take, for example, famous 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns. His poems have been translated into many languages, and he is popular all over the world – except in Japan. Scholars discovered recently that the words that make his poems beautiful in English were completely lost in the Japanese versions. One famous verse came out sounding like this: “Good luck to your honest friendly face, Great King of the sausages.”What? No wonder no one liked Burns in Japan!

What happened to Burns in Japanese could happen to you, too, if you rely on an interpreter not only to translate from English into your language, but to communicate what you say into English!

Though it can be a challenging task, the only way to truly understand and communicate in English is to do it yourself. If you persist on the path of English learning, you’ll be rewarded with a whole new approach to expressing yourself.