I’m sure we all make mistakes in translation from time to time. Our experience doesn’t help, our knowledge doesn’t change much, they just happen. Ever wondered where on Earth to translation mistakes come from? Or do you have some ideas how to eliminate them?
1) Poor proofreading
Most of translation mistakes could be saved from being ridiculed through a generous proofreading session. Typos, punctuation, spelling or ignored “not” here and there result from poor or no proofreading at all.
Inspiring examples here: http://www.zone38.net/phs/archives/index.php?cat=0
2) Misunderstanding grammar
Most of translators working into English have some problems with grammar (luckily, they go away with time). The recurring problem of “a/the” is a real nightmare. Just imagine all implications and differences between “a translator” and “the translator”. Similar problems are caused by the saxon genitive (and the moving ‘, of course). Misunderstanding the source text’s grammar can result in all sorts of shameful mistakes, like changing the tense, number and gender in sentences.
3) Problems with lexis
Messed collocations is by far the most widely spread disease, touching a great number of translations.
I made the bed. - Did I construct a bed? NO!
She made an exception. - An exception is allowance to breaking a rule, not a thing.
(source: http://esl.about.com/od/intermediate-collocations/f/What-Is-Collocation.htm)
It’s so easy to make(do?) a mistake here while translating.
Disregarding the rules of idiom in the source or target language results in funny, but always serious mistakes.
4) Metaphors
“When we take metaphors into consideration in our translations, we have to remember that we are dealing with figurative language that has been consciously chosen by the author of the text we are working on. His metaphors are there for a purpose and we, as translators, should do our utmost to render those same metaphors in the target language.”
(source: “Successful Polish English Translation” Korzeniowska & Kuhiwczak)
True, translators should strive to reflect the beauty of metaphors in their target texts. Sometimes they can’t for various reasons, so they leave the text correct, but not that rich. That is fine and can be justified in certain cases. But what if a translator simply doesn’t understand a metaphor?
5) Lost in synonyms
Some translation mistakes are made when translators misuse synonyms. By nature, synonyms are similar but never mean exactly the same. A choice of synonym in the target language may be that far from the original meaning in the source text, that these two words don’t name the same thing anymore.
6) By the dictionary
Right, dictionaries are essential in our work. But they can’t be treated as the only reference possible. Many mistakes happen because dictionaries are old, don’t know the context, give only a bit of information, are general. Relying too much on dictionaries may lead to…
When the sentence “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (дух бодр, плоть же немощна, an allusion to Mark 14:38) was translated into Russian and then back to English, the result was “The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten” (спирт, конечно, готов, но мясо протухло).
(source: Wikipedia)
Where do your mistakes come from? How do you deal with them?
Marta Stelmaszak
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