Translators are Traitors and rightly so!

 

Sorry to break the news to those who refuse to accept this fact but we translators are traitors and I demand my right to remain a traitor! The famous Italian adage 'Traduttore Traditore" unfortunately cannot be rendered terribly well in English. The pun falls rather flat though the meaning remains understandable. So yes! As translators we are traitors since it's completely impossible to translate without our subjective approaches while our writing style is bound to show. 

Even AI can't escape this fact. It may use lots of other people's subjective views but this is what they shall remain: viewpoints. And let's face it, AI doesn't have volition. It can be very fast and useful but cannot replace a human being. I'll be sharing more on this topic soon! 

 

Once I was speaking with an British colleague of mine who asked me whether I believed that there was an actual proper translation for each word or whether I thought that there was a choice of terms that could be used. The second option is the only one viable because translation depends on context and therefore a standard word may or may not apply.

 

 As a translator, my job consists in rendering the source text very accurately while making sure that the translation doesn't sound like a translation. This takes formal skills as well as creativity. It sometimes requires a lot of thinking, trial and error until we're happy with the result.

What people call localization is simply about making sure that what you have translated appeals to the target audience so that it can relate to it with cultural references it is used to. This is something that should be done systematically when one translates. So no, there cannot be just one valid word per word translation and thinking so shows little knowledge about translating. Translators are not living dictionaries, they are much more! If a dictionary could do our job, we would be out of work. There would be no need for our skills.Translating is not literal, you cannot just replace a word by its equivalent in another language. Sometimes if not often, we use words which are not necessarily what the dictionaries would suggest but this is because we have a context to stick to.

Beside, when I think of the French and English languages, English has about twice as many words, it is a fairly analytical language while French is a synthetic language. Apart from applying well-known linguistic rules such as transposing, adapting and so forth, style and intent are major components of any document.

 

Translators all have different writing styles and tricks they use to render sentences as appropriately as possible. But they cannot disappear completely. Nor would it be a good thing. Their presence is required in order to convey style and intent as well as meaning and cultural adaptations. So don't hurt us, don't doubt us, it takes real effort to do our job as qualified and necessary traitors!