Translation
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Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.
Mwaramutse, ndashaka gutanga ibisobanuro kubintu runaka.Yours too, just in caseTranslation is the process by which we take a text in some weird language and convert it into one we can actually understand (or not, depends if the person can read), while keeping the same meaning or finding an equivalent term. For example, if we have the phrase "Está lloviendo a cántaros." we might translate it literally as "It's raining by pitchers.". But that sounds bonkers, everyone knows it normally rains frogs. Therefore, what the author really means is "It's raining cats and dogs". Got it? Great, me neither.
And why do we translate?
Good question, I don't know either translation is fundamental for effective communication between two people who speak different tongues. There are many tongues: long ones, red ones, blue ones. Last week I met someone who wiped their nose with their tongue. What's that got to do with anything? I know nothing, help It means that thanks to this we have different languages in our precious dumpster called Earth. Hence, when traveling, it's common to meet people who speak in funny ways but whom we understand absolutely nothing. This is where translation comes in, allowing us to figure out what lovely words that military man in sneakers is saying to us.
Origin of Translation
In the beginning, all those languages we speak today didn't exist. Only one was spoken, which made communication easy for our ancestors. There's debate about what that mother tongue was; some believe it was Sumerian, others the Oak Language. Here at Uncyclopedia, we believe it was Tuvalí written in Morse code. However, everyone agrees that back then, translation wasn't necessary.
Nevertheless, while we were having fun enslaving humans and building towers, God started getting bored with human progress, so He introduced languages to see what would happen. The result was total confusion, the failure of the Tower of Babel, and a spike in brick manufacturing costs because they couldn't understand the written plans. From then on, everyone went off with their own language, and since there was no copyright, they morphed in bizarre ways, from sun doodles to backwards Rs.
With this inconvenience, translators began to emerge – people skilled in interpreting languages. Thanks to them, we can now enjoy a good movie without having to learn those Yankee languages, read those university textbooks about snail slime, or simply find out if the President of Russia has declared World War Three. These skills were soon implemented in computers worldwide, speeding up translation with a 90% inaccuracy rate.
Still, there were those jealous types who wanted to return to the roots of having one common language. From these ideas came so-called "Artificial Languages" like Esperanto, Ido, and AAAAAAAAA!, aiming to standardize a secondary language to make translators obsolete and leave them jobless. But the proposals were fruitless, as they sounded more like rituals to summon some Inca god.
Translation Process
There are two ways to perform a translation. The first is typing "Translator" into Google and pasting the text you want to decipher. Some say this method is cheating, but come on. Do you really want to spend 5 hours manually translating what your Polish discord friend with a strange fixation on Austrian painters is saying? What would really be cheating is not using today's technology, like adding numbers with ChatGPT.
In any case, the second method is manual work, which involves a whole process of interpretation and analysis to avoid wrong or awkward translations. In this regard, the translator must not only know how to say "Hello" in Spanish, but also all its rules, grammar, exceptions, and variants. Since just this could take a lifetime trying to understand nonsense like subjunctive moods, gerunds, Gerudo warriors, perfect tenses, imperfect tenses, clock times, and so on, translators use a little book called a dictionary to make looking up terms and their possible equivalents easier.
The thing is, words don't always mean the same thing in every context. Sometimes something as banal as "carpeta" can go from, well, a folder, to a carpet on the floor. This is what's called Polysemy (no, it's not a lung disease, that's Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis). Thanks to this, translators have to get inside the author's mind, get to know them, analyze them, love them, hate them, and grope them, all just to figure out what the heck they meant in their last will and testament. And that's not enough; they also need to know the author's culture and master it as if it were their own. So if you want to translate a document in Russian, start learning how to dance the Trepak now. As you see, it's no wonder translators are among the best-paid people.
Types of Translation
There is a wide array of translation methods:
- Legal Translation: This involves taking legal texts and translating them in such a way that the recipients can find the loopholes. Widely used in contracts, patents, and those terms of service no one reads.
- Literary Translation: Used to allow people unfamiliar with the language to read books of general culture like Lolita, Frikipedio, or, failing that, Wattpad fanfics.
- Biblical Translation: Used for transmitting sacred texts clearly and precisely, so that preachers can use them to destroy the Nintendos and their child-snatching entourage.
- Interpretive Translation: This involves translating spoken phrases, not written text. Its translators often make weird hand gestures during presidential speeches so the deaf can understand the dollar exchange rate.
- Paraphrase: Here the translation is based on the translator's opinions, which usually means if the original text was about a flower, the translated text ends up discussing the morphology of bread in the post-communist era.
- Literal Translation: This is translating word-for-word, no analysis, no context, no nonsense like that.
False Friends
No, I don't mean your high school buddies. False friends are words that look very similar to words in our language, but turn out to mean the complete opposite, resulting in situations like the one in the picture on the left. They are the primary source of frustration for language learners and the cheap knockoffs of Google Translate.
It's presumed that the origin of false friends lies with troll linguists with nothing better to do, driven by a desire to create these deceptive equivalents to laugh at unsuspecting souls who translate them confidently but wrongly. Thanks to this, translators must always be suspicious of the words they translate. Does it say "Constipado"? It probably doesn't mean constipated. Does it say "Embarazada"? You know, sounds like an embarrassing situation. Does it say "Dr. Cervantes"? Obviously, it's Dr. Servants.
The best way to avoid these false friends is the same way you do with your real friends[Appointment required]. Except you're not going to spy on them on Face-junk, but in the Word-junk dictionary. This way, you'll avoid humiliation when chatting with your Polish friend on Discord. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be constipated... What do you mean that doesn't mean "constipado"?
See Also
