Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Word for Word

25.5.09

It has been said that there is no such thing as an untranslatable text. Everything should be able to be expressed in each language in some form or another. But I think it’s safe to say that a translation will not always match the same format as that of the source text. For example we can examine the German word “Vergangenheitsbewältigung.”  There is no one word in the English language that sums up the sense of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” but in general it means “(the process of) coming to terms with the past.” So sometimes the translator must take a few liberties with the text to obtain the overall sense of the word/phrase/text, since sometimes a word for word translation is just not possible.

1 comment:

  1. I love reading your posts. You're soooo smart and you write beautifully! The "V" word you mention is not a word ... it's a whole sentence! What are they thinking!!
    Va.

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