What Is Literal Translation, and How Can It Obscure Your Message?
If you’ve spent any time thinking about global communication or broadcasting a message effectively across linguistic borders, then ‘literal translation’ may be a phrase you’ve stumbled across before.
It sounds harmless enough; what’s wrong with being literal anyway? Doesn’t that leave less room for misunderstanding?
Whilst successfully translated material will often preserve (as closely as possible) the original meaning of a source text, there are plenty of hazards for those who wrongly assume that language can or should be translated word-for-word. Literal translation, in this sense, refers to a certain type of word-for-word translation that often ends up doing more harm than good.
Let’s take a look at why — as well as how you might avoid it.
What does literal translation mean?
In the weird and wonderful world of language services, ‘literal translation’ usually refers to the translation of a source text, word-for-word, into a desired language — without paying proper attention to the way whole sentences or phrases work. You might also hear it referred to as ‘direct translation’.
A translator, whether human or machine, will take each word of a source text and then simply find a word they hope matches it in the target language, producing a new ‘translated’ piece.
It’s a trap that computers — particularly those sporting less sophisticated software — often fall prey to. People who don’t necessarily have a good grasp on how languages function can also end up attempting to translate literally, without realising the problems this can cause.
Imagine trawling through a Romanian newspaper article, armed only with a Romanian-English dictionary, and with no functional knowledge of the Romanian language. Then imagine going through the article, looking up each word as they appear, and simply writing down the English equivalent of each one. This, in a nutshell, is a very literal form of literal translation. The result? Probably a scramble of English words that don’t fit together, causing your readers all sorts of confusion and warping the original meaning of your source text beyond recognition.
How can literal translation cause problems?
With literal translation, not enough attention is given to the way words and meanings function together, the way sentences are structured as a whole, or the way different languages operate. This can result in all manner of frustration, for readers and writers alike.
So, why don’t literal translations work out the way you want them to?
Idioms can lose their meaning
Idioms are usually metaphorical phrases (or, more specifically, non-literal) used to vividly convey information. They embed themselves in our cultures and in our languages without us even realising it. Even though their literal meanings can sound bizarre, users and recognisers of idioms find them useful because they’re capable of expressing situations and ideas in concise, memorable terms.
The problem with idioms? They often don’t transfer into other languages word-for-word.
‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ is an English classic. If you’re not familiar with it, it means ‘it’s raining heavily’ — raining water, that is, not pets. To most English readers and speakers, the meaning is commonly understood. To non-English speakers, a literal translation of this phrase may result in confusion, or serious concern for animal welfare.
Italians have a similar phrase, ‘piove a catinelle’, the literal translation of which is ‘it’s raining basins’. Perhaps this one’s a little easier for non-Italian readers to work out, given it’s at least sort of related. Still, you get the point; whatever is a commonly understood idiom in one language may end up appearing bizarre or nonsensical when translated literally.
Skilled translators will know whether there are idiomatic equivalents in their target language and will alter the phrasing accordingly. This ensures that the core meaning and metaphorical style of the source text is preserved, but with the actual idioms updated so that they resonate properly with the intended reader.
Compound words may translate awkwardly
Idioms aren’t the only feature of language that can end up warped by literal translation. Compound words can also end up sounding a bit strange when translated directly.
Compound words are when one or more words are combined to form a specific meaning. In English, ‘snowball’, ‘notebook’ and ‘underground’ are all examples of compound words. Due to their common use and often global application, most of these have rough literal equivalents in many other languages.
There are, however, certain languages which make far more liberal use of compound words. German is one such language, where you will often see multiple words ‘compounded’ together to create novel and unique meanings.
‘Torschlusspanik’ is one example, a compound phrase in German that also operates sort of like an idiom. Metaphorically speaking, it means the worry people get when they realise that time might be running out, or when they realise that an opportunity might have gone. The literal translation, however, would be ‘gate-close panic’. In other words, the panic that’s felt when a gate is closed.
Does ‘closed gate panic’ make literal sense in English? Well, maybe, just about, but English readers are unlikely to know what this really refers to, and it’s certainly not a recognisable phrase. Given how strange the line appears, a literal translation of this German gem is likely to cause only confusion amongst readers. The specific ‘feel’ of the phrase is also likely to be lost.
Nuance will often be lost
Shades of meaning and nuance are some of the first things to go when a source text is translated literally. This can often come about because a certain word will carry a different implied intensity in a source text compared to its literal equivalent in another language.
Words carry different connotations depending on the culture within which they appear. Something that reflects a sense of confidence for speakers of one language may connote arrogance for speakers of another. A skilled translator will have a good grasp of the shared cultural understandings that underpin the more subtle, unspoken meanings of a source text, and will have a good idea of how to preserve this for a new audience.
Loss of nuance might also take place because a source language will have various words meaning slightly different things. These words may all end up translated into the same single word through literal translation. For this reason, a good working knowledge of how different objects appear in different languages is needed in order for an accurate translation to take place.
‘Lavette’, ‘torchon’, ‘serpillière’, ‘vêtement’, and ‘chiffon’ are all French words which, in a literal translation, are likely to end up as ‘cloth’ in English. In French, however, these all refer to slightly different items. ‘Torchon’ or ‘lavette’ usually refer to a dishcloth, a ‘chiffon’ is more of a rag used for general cleaning, a ‘serpillière’ is a floorcloth, and ‘vêtements’ are clothes that you would wear. Literal translations can often (if you’ll permit us a clothing-related metaphor) iron over these small but important differences. At best, this can result in confusion or loss of precise meaning. At worst, it can make a translation seem completely nonsensical to its newly intended readership.
Grammatical errors and confused sentence structure can occur
Literal translation can often result in words being placed alongside one another in the same order they appear in the source text. Even amongst European languages sharing Latinate roots, this can wreak grammatical havoc. The errors thrown up by literal translation can be even more pronounced between languages that share very little linguistic ground.
Different languages construct sentences in different ways. The positioning of verbs, subjects, and objects within a sentence can all vary depending on the specific rules of that language, and some languages have far ‘stricter’ word orders than others. Some rely on the altering of words themselves, rather than the order they appear in, to construct meaning. In German, you will often see main verbs appearing at the end of a sentence. In English, this is much less common — unless, of course, you happen to be Yoda. Learning about literal translation, you are!
Literal translation can sometimes ride roughshod over these differences, resulting in sentences that appear awkwardly phrased, or that make no grammatical sense whatsoever.
Some words may not have a ‘literal translation’
Before we get too carried away with the idea of ‘untranslatable’ words, it’s worth noting that claiming a word does not have a ‘literal translation’ is not the same thing as saying it’s impossible to translate. Skillful translators are able to reconstruct and refashion language in a way that effectively conveys meaning to a new audience, even when there is no ‘literal translation’ of a phrase as it appears in a source text.
That being said, you have to know which phrases don’t translate literally in order to translate them effectively. This is something that literal translation can miss, attempting to simply reproduce certain phrases using known words in a target language, without paying attention to the overall meaning.
‘Wabi-sabi’ (侘寂) is a phrase in Japanese encapsulating an approach to life in which you accept and appreciate the imperfection and transience of existence. Deep spiritual stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree, but not something that can be ‘literally translated’ into English using a word-for-word equivalent. The English language doesn’t really have a single phrase that means ‘wabi-sabi’ precisely, so translators need to find creative, concise ways to encapsulate this wonderful piece of Japanese wisdom if they’re framing it for English readers.
What are some alternatives to literal translation?
Now that we’ve established some of the pitfalls of literal translation, what are some alternatives to it?
The art of translating a text in a way that prioritises the overall meaning and tone of the source material, but avoids strict word-for-word translation in order to do so, can be called ‘dynamic translation, ‘free translation’, or even ‘creative translation’.
‘Technical translation’ is a term we like to use for translation projects that aim to preserve the original, precise meaning of words in a document as closely as possible. But wait, isn’t this just literal translation? Actually, the two are slightly different!
To claim that any of these terms are fixed is to overlook the complex and ever-changing debates relating to how people communicate globally. Different people will mean slightly different things by these terms, depending on their own understanding and the contexts they’re talking about.
With that in mind, let’s have a go at breaking them down.
Dynamic and free translation
‘Dynamic’ or ‘free’ translation attempts to remain sensitive to cultural and linguistic differences across languages, working to produce a message that resonates with the target audience by reshaping text in ways that are recognisable for intended readers. Dynamic translation will often recognise that, in order to preserve overall meaning, some words or phrases may need to be altered or re-imagined. This can also involve restructuring of sentences or reshaping of phrases so that they ‘make sense’ when heard or read by native speakers.
Dynamic translation shouldn’t involve straying too far from the core content of a text, since core information should still be preserved and communicated properly. Skilled dynamic translators would argue that dynamic translation is all about preserving meaning at an essential level — it’s just that the terms used to communicate this information might be altered to suit a new audience.
Using the ‘raining cats and dogs’ example, a good dynamic translator would recognise that this phrase is unlikely to translate meaningfully word-for-word. They would instead replace it with a culturally appropriate idiom that preserves the meaning and tone.
Creative translation and transcreation
Creative translation can sometimes be seen to share the same space as transcreation — another term that you may have seen knocking about the lingo-sphere!
Essentially, these terms can refer to translation projects that employ even more creative licence, and a more extensive reshaping of language in order to produce content for new readers. This can involve a complete transformation, or even the creation of new phrases or passages, all with the aim of conveying a carefully honed message to a new audience — but recognising that you sometimes have to stray quite far from the original source material in order to do so.
Depending on how ‘creative’ your translation gets, you might find your new content appears quite different from the original, but still achieves the same broad aim. This might mean promoting the same product using a similar approach, or it might mean delivering the same essential message to an entirely different audience, with different shared understandings and points of reference.
At the far end of the spectrum, transcreation can look quite similar to original content creation, using a creative brief as a starting point for generating new content in a target language. Some people might say that ‘transcreation’ has more in common with original content creation, or developing new marketing material, than it does with translation. What do you think?
Technical translation
You may sometimes hear ‘literal translation’ used for texts where precise terminology needs to be urgently preserved. Examples might be legal documentation, contracts, medical texts, academic articles, or instruction manuals. Usually, however, ‘technical translation’ is a better title for this sort of project, where specific words need to be translated in ways that mimic their precise original meaning as accurately as possible.
This is because literal translation aiming to reproduce texts like this can still end up causing grammatical errors or awkward phrasing, obscuring, rather than preserving, the meaning overall. Technical translation that pays close attention to the original meaning of words still has to be able to reproduce content in a form that works for a new language and audience. This can often involve small but crucial reshufflings of sentence structure, or the addition of keywords, conjunctions, or grammar.
How can you avoid literal translation?
Although it might seem like a straightforward way to get a message produced in a new language, literal translation can cause you all sorts of headaches further down the line. Nuance can be lost, grammar and sentence structure can be bent out of shape, individual words can lose their specific meaning — and all of this can be very confusing indeed for readers. So, how do professional linguists and translators guard against this?
First of all, a good agency should ensure that their translations are human-led, rather than machine-led. They should also make sure that the translated material is proofread in its final form, to ensure that it reads smoothly and naturally in its target language.
Since we here at ZippyLingo just proved we know what to look out for, we can guarantee that your content won’t get caught up in a literal word-salad. On top of all that, our talented translators also translate into (not out of) their native tongue, a crucial element in ensuring that a translated text works properly for its intended audience.
We understand how language works. Chat with us today to see how we can get language working for you.
