Technical Translation
Idioms are a key part of language. They are little nuggets of poetry in a paragraph of prose. But,
if truth be told, they can be a real thorn in the side of translators. In this Ultimate Guide to
Translating Idioms, Lucy explains what an idiom is, why they are the cause of such misery for
translators and how to actually translate the pesky blighters. So, let’s cut to the chase…
What is an idiom?
Looking at this dictionary definition (thanks Google), it comes as no surprise that idioms are
difficult to translate. An idiom is “a group of words that portray a meaning that cannot be guessed
from knowing the meaning of the individual words”. In other words, the only way to know what an
idiom means is to know the idiom. Their very nature means that you can’t work out the meaning of
the phrase from the phrase alone.
Part two of the definition states that idioms are “a form of expression natural to a language”. And
that brings us nicely on to the next section of this article…
Why translating idioms is different to translating normal text
, There are two different ways of translating text:
Method A
Translate the individual words. This is the method commonly used by non-professionals and in
machine translation. The translator or machine looks at the meaning of the individual words and
searches for equivalent words in the target language. It is commonly known as literal translation
(DE: wörtliche Übersetzung).
Method B
Understand the meaning of the phrase or sentence (or even paragraph in certain cases) and
come up with a phrase or sentence that expresses the same meaning in the target language.
This is the method applied by professional translators and it is what allows professional
translators to create texts that read like they have been written in the target language, rather than
as translations (a common pitfall of inexperienced translators and machine translations).
Looking back to our two definitions of an idiom; definition 1. stated that the meaning of an idiom
cannot be deduced from the individual words.
This means that Translation Method A will bring up all kinds of brilliant results:
Idioms are a key part of language. They are little nuggets of poetry in a paragraph of prose. But,
if truth be told, they can be a real thorn in the side of translators. In this Ultimate Guide to
Translating Idioms, Lucy explains what an idiom is, why they are the cause of such misery for
translators and how to actually translate the pesky blighters. So, let’s cut to the chase…
What is an idiom?
Looking at this dictionary definition (thanks Google), it comes as no surprise that idioms are
difficult to translate. An idiom is “a group of words that portray a meaning that cannot be guessed
from knowing the meaning of the individual words”. In other words, the only way to know what an
idiom means is to know the idiom. Their very nature means that you can’t work out the meaning of
the phrase from the phrase alone.
Part two of the definition states that idioms are “a form of expression natural to a language”. And
that brings us nicely on to the next section of this article…
Why translating idioms is different to translating normal text
, There are two different ways of translating text:
Method A
Translate the individual words. This is the method commonly used by non-professionals and in
machine translation. The translator or machine looks at the meaning of the individual words and
searches for equivalent words in the target language. It is commonly known as literal translation
(DE: wörtliche Übersetzung).
Method B
Understand the meaning of the phrase or sentence (or even paragraph in certain cases) and
come up with a phrase or sentence that expresses the same meaning in the target language.
This is the method applied by professional translators and it is what allows professional
translators to create texts that read like they have been written in the target language, rather than
as translations (a common pitfall of inexperienced translators and machine translations).
Looking back to our two definitions of an idiom; definition 1. stated that the meaning of an idiom
cannot be deduced from the individual words.
This means that Translation Method A will bring up all kinds of brilliant results:
