Are there any English words that don’t translate?

English words that don’t translate
  • Sulk (verb) This means to be silent, morose, and bad-tempered out of annoyance or disappointment. …
  • Silly (adjective) Silly is a jovial adjective that basically means foolish. …
  • Scroll (verb) …
  • Awkward (adjective) …
  • Fortnight (noun) …
  • Spam (noun)

What is the hardest thing to translate?

Interestingly, the hardest word in the world to translate is Ilunga. This word belongs to the Luba-Kasai or Tshiluba language, which is spoken by more than 6 million speakers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Is there a language that cant be translated?

But there’s also Odia, the official language of the Odisha state in India, with 38 million speakers, which has no presence in Google Translate. And Oromo, a language spoken by some 34 million people, mostly in Ethiopia, which has just 772 articles in its Wikipedia.

Why are some words difficult translate?

Translation can also be difficult because of cultural differences. Words often reflect the culture and the society that use them. Therefore, words that are able to describe very specific things or emotions might now exist in other languages.

What are the hardest languages to translate?

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which means that saying a word with a different pitch can actually change its meaning. The use of multiple homophones, idioms, and aphorisms makes Mandarin one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to grasp.

What linguistic features are hardest to translate?

Many linguistic professionals insist that idioms are the most difficult items to translate. In fact, idioms are routinely cited as a problem machine translation engines will never fully solve. Ideally, publishers should try to limit the number of idiomatic expressions contained in content they hope to translate.

What is the most important thing in translation?

The best translators will correctly capture the meaning of the source content and ensure accuracy in terms of language and style. Translation is not just about taking a text in one language and presenting it in another. You must also capture the spirit of the material and be able to put it all in context.

What two elements are important for an ideal translation?

Here are the two elements that are important for an ideal translation:
  • Accuracy. Well, accuracy refers to how correctly words are translated; in other words, something that is free from errors or mistakes. …
  • Readability. Readability refers to how easy it is for the reader to read the content.

What is the most common problem that a translator face?

Limited time is the most common problem that translators face every single day, because most clients need the translated work quickly; they have no time to lose. If it is a straightforward document, then you may be able to finish it within the deadline.

Is Chinese hard to translate?

With 1.3 billion native speakers, Chinese is the most spoken language worldwide; it is also one of the most challenging languages to translate.

What are the difficulties with translating the Bible?

The Bible is addressed to a huge variety of people and was written for different ‘uses’ e.g. listening, reading etc. This makes the Bible hard to translate since it is very difficult—for some people impossible—to transfer all these features from the Source Languages into the Target Language.

What is the most difficult thing in poetry translation?

Among the most devilish devices to ever plague poetry translators is the metaphor. The very quality of metaphors makes them extremely difficult to translate. Metaphors are usually specific to individual languages and do not lend themselves well to interpretation.

What are cultural problems in translation?

Cultural problems in translation arise as a result of the differences between the two languages in expressing identity and lifestyle. Translators will find it difficult to translate abstract or concrete concepts in the source language/culture (SL/C) which are completely unknown in the target language/culture (TL/C).

Was the Bible translated?

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of September 2020 the full Bible has been translated into 704 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,551 languages and Bible portions or stories into 1,160 other languages.

What is lost when a poem is translated?

Robert Frost once remarked, “Poetry is what gets lost in translation,” and many literary types find translation to be a near-impossible task.

What specific problems a translator can face in translating poetry?

The translator may face the linguistic, literary and aesthetic, and socio-cultural problems in translating it. The linguistic problems include the collocation and obscured syntactic structure. The aesthetic and literary problems are related with poetic structure, metaphorical expressions, and sounds.