Translation services still play an important role in today’s world where the vision of a borderless world is becoming increasingly clear. As much as translation might not be necessary in regular conversation due to popularity of English worldwide and the wide range of technologies that support instant translation, it is crucial in more serious cases. It is true that English is getting more popular, but many people worldwide use it on a basic level, that does not allow them to truly communicate.
What do we understand by “truly communicate”? It refers to the goal of professional translations, which is to translate intent and sense of a statement, or to convey the messages in a beautiful way instead of translating every single word separately.
What is communication in translation?
It refers to the process of communication between the translator and the author of the source text. It is a crucial process, as without it a translation job can face the serious consequences of a wrong translation.
If you are the author of the text you need to clearly explain the context of your message in case there is any doubts. The translator will then use his/her expertise to change phrases and words in your text in a way that will ensure that the meaning and sense of the text is fully preserved.
In order to fully understand the importance of communication in translation, we need to be aware that, while looking at the text, translator would see something else than the rest of us. Regular people would see a text that needs to be translated, probably word by word, into another language. A good translator sees possible untranslatable words, hours of work it will take for the text to be translated, even seek help from people who are capable to translate text, sometimes words and phrases that can be problematic or words that he translator can’t understand or misinterpret… All while understanding the context, cultural background, and trying to make the most sense in the target language.
Translation is Communication
Translation is indeed a type of communication – not only interlingual, but also intercultural. Its goal is to truly communicate the original message, preserving its meaning, while also taking into account the cultural and historical context of the text. Well-executed translation will make your target audience understand your message as precisely as if they could read your mind.
Professional translation experts can convert messages to a language that is completely different than the original one and preserve its sense, meaning and even cultural context.
How important is communication in translation?
Efficient and constant communication is important as it helps the translator to do the work faster and better. The professional you hire must know what style to use and translate according to it. Sometimes he or she might need to completely change sentence structure and words in order to preserve the context, but thanks to communicating with you he will be fully aware of any changes and the way in which they will affect the meaning of text.
As we already mentioned, unsuccessful interpretation of customer requirements can lead to bad translation. This can have very serious consequences at very different levels.
How does translation affect the communication process?
A good translator bridges the communication gap between people from different cultures speaking different languages. Translation is also a mediating process, a process with very serious implications that is bridging or sometimes even directional.
Some languages are so different from each other that direct translation would deliver wrong message. There are language rules that can exist in one language, but not in another. Therefore, bad translation can possibly destroy our communication efforts.
These days demand for precise translation is bigger than ever. Documents of individuals or businesses, legal documents or medical translations… These things require professional translation approach.