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Phrases have properties other than their literal meaning. These can be both important to an author's intent, and hard to get across; in the same way that when s
by tsukikage 2y ago
Phrases have properties other than their literal meaning. These can be both important to an author's intent, and hard to get across; in the same way that when someone fails to get a joke, you can likely explain it to their satisfaction but it's much harder to get them to actually find it funny - the punchiness and associations are part of what makes one laugh, and these become lost during extended explanation.
You can explain the meaning of a text, sure, and for technical texts that may be all you need, but if the goal is not simply the transfer of dry information and the result fails to trigger the intended associations and emotions, your job as a translator is not yet done.
- autoexec 2y ago> Phrases have properties other than their literal meaning. These can be both important to an author's intent, and hard to get across; Personally I prefer footnotes in those situations. I'd rather have a few sentences that explain the nuance an author was trying to convey with their word choice that a native speaker would have picked up on rather than have a phrase thrown out entirely and replaced with some alternative localization that might be familiar in an effort to try to capture the same "feel" but barely comes close to what was actually said (if you're lucky).