Along for the Ride
How to Map Out Successful Routes that Steer Your Translation Projects the Right Way
Which question would you respond to positively: “Care to join me?” “Would you like to come with me?” “Can you please come?” Or are they all the same? Translations can be the object of much scrutiny, and sorting out what the proverbial bone of contention may be in individual cases is difficult. Let’s take a look at the process and see if there are any road signs that will help avoid complicated detours.
I Eat Your Liver
Nothing reveals the character of a language and thereby—to a certain degree—of its speakers more than idioms and colloquialisms, standardized expressions that usually defy attempts of literal translation. Their use can be great fun but also (quite literally…) spell trouble when addressing a global audience.
“Argot” as the French call it—giving the phenomena a somewhat more sophisticated ring than the English “slang”—is usually so engrained in our daily communications that we do not notice anything strange, even if we are saying things that can appear quite absurd. We never really “nuke” our food nor does it actually rain cats and dogs. But have you ever wondered what it rains in other cultures? Well, you might be surprised to find out that in South Africa, it’s raining old women with knobkerries (clubs) and in Norway, female trolls. The Spanish offer husbands, and the Polish, frogs.
