TRANSLATING, contrary to what some people think, is not just a matter of replacing a word from one language with an exact equivalent in another. While a literal, word-for-word translation often will work and is even necessary, most documents require much more, including an understanding by the translator of the nuances, idioms and regional expressions of both languages as well as the cultures of the two societies. That is why translating a complex document can take time and is often costly.
Interpreting or oral translation is a separate skill.
The job of the skilled translator is not only to give an accurate rendering of the source language in the target language, but also to make the result polished and grammatically correct. A well-translated document should not read like a translation.
The two extremes are literal, or word-for-word, translation on the one end and idiomatic on the other.
Literal translations are often called for when dealing with legal and sometimes technical documents. They cannot stray far from the original. But even there it is sometimes difficult to render a word-for-word translation. For example, we translate a lot of birth certificates and marriage certificates. In Brazil, such certificates are issued by a local “registry office” called a cartorio. We have no such system in the United States, where such certificates are usually issued by the state, usually by a “vital records” agency or office. The cartorio in Brazil is also functions like a notary public in the United States. So the accepted translation, “registry office” covers a lot of territory.
Idiomatic translations are used especially for literary works. The translator has more leeway in making the text read smoothly and in using substitute idioms for clarity and consistency, but even then the translation must be a faithful rendition of the original.
Idioms and metaphors present a particular challenge for the translator because a verbatim translation of an idiomatic expression or a metaphor from one language often makes no sense in another. We all know the expression “beating a dead horse,” which means continuing a discussion or argument that has been thoroughly exhausted already. In Portuguese, the equivalent idiom is literally “going back to the cold cow” (voltando a vaca fria). You can see that a the literal translation wouldn’t mean much to the English reader.
Most translations lie somewhere between the two extremes of literal and idiomatic. The constant is that the resulting work must faithfully reflect the original.
Machine translation (MT), computer-assisted translation (CAT) and other computer translations can be very useful for those who simply want to get the sense from a document in another language without having to hire a professional translator. And someday, given the speed with which technology is evolving, they may even replace human translators. But for the moment this form of translation is a weak substitute for the work of a skilled professional translator. (Read more of Edgar Miller’s views on CAT)