As we have learned in this course, an experienced translator uses various techniques in order to obtain great results. They employ plenty of methods to make sure that their translations are accurate and sound the most natural in the target language. The following presentation will cover some of the strategies used by those interpreters and translators. I will begin with one of the most common translation techniques, borrowing. Barrowing is when words or phrases are adopted by speakers of one language from a different language.
In other words, the translator makes the choice to use the same word in the target language as it is found in the source language. Therefore, it involves no translation at all. Barrowing is used mainly out of necessity, due to the fact that a certain word does not exist in the target language.
Take the example of pretzel and hamburger. They were both borrowed from the German language. Now, how would we translate pretzel? We know what it is, but we call it a twisted bread. So clearly there was no actual word for it, so we just adopted the, we borrowed, we adopted the word pretzel and hamburger.
Same thing happens with taco, same thing happens with burrito. We use a lot of borrowed words in the spoken language every day without even knowing they come from another language. Most of the borrowed words that come from English are usually technical terms, such as software, iPhone, Facebook, and so on.
Other examples that I can think of when I was thinking about words that I think clearly they're from other languages that we borrow them will be pizza or cappuccino. How many words could you list that are borrowed from other languages? I can think of four others.
They all come from French, such as valet and champagne and resume or resume. and café. They're all French words.
We borrow them all from the French language. The next technique that I would like to talk about is calque. A calque is a word or phrase borrowed from another language and translated literally, word for word, into the target language. So that's the difference between calque and borrowing, that this is actually translated literally, word by word.
The term calque itself, it's borrowed from French, and it derives from the verb calquer. which means to copy or to trace, which makes perfect sense. Because carves are translated into the target language, they tend to follow the morphosyntactic rules of that language. For example, we borrow the term flea market in English from the French phrase, pardon my French. And the term literally means market of fleas.
Now remember I told you, calcs follow the morphosyntactic rules of the language, the target language, in this case English, which is why in English we call it flea market. We don't say the market of fleas, we call it flea market. So it respects the morphosyntactic rules of English.
Let's look at other examples. I can list rascacielos in Spanish or alta resolución. In Spanish as well, they both come from English.
As you can see, they follow the morphosyntactic rules of Spanish. Skyscraper becomes rascacielos. En alta resolución, you can see the spelling has the accent, so it's respecting those rules. I have a few more for you. Baseball.
Baseball in English became baseball in Spanish. Morphosyntactic rules of Spanish. The E has an accent. We have the phonetic sound that was changed in the spelling. Mouse literally translated to ratón to refer to the mouse, you know.
for the computers and from German we have now Biergarten which literally comes from Biergarten as is commonly used in German. Similarly to Calc the next technique also involves literal translation and it's called literal translation. Literal translation It's a word-for-word translation, as the name suggests, and it can be used in some languages, but not others, depending on the sentence structure.
So, for example, I am doing a presentation right now can be literally translated from English to Spanish. Yo estoy haciendo a presentation, una presentación. So we have every single one of the elements, the subject, the verb, everything, the indefinite article, and everything is exactly the same.
So yes, it can be literally translated. But just because one sentence can be literally translated across a language, it does not mean that all sentences can be translated literally. So for instance, look at the next sentence.
The experienced teacher had never been whatever. would translate to in Spanish as el profesor experimentado nunca había. As you can see, experience and teacher here are switched, el profesor experimentado.
So the noun first and then the adjective as opposed to English, the adjective and then the noun. So clearly the second sentence cannot be literally translated. Let's see if the next two sentences could be literally translated.
Could you literally translate I am going to the beach? No, you cannot. I am going to the beach would literally be Soy yendo a la playa.
And we know that in Spanish it would be not translated that way. Instead, it should be voy a ir a la playa, which does not work as a literal translation. The second sentence, I go to the beach. Could that be literally translated?
Yes, it can't. I go to the beach would be literally, voy a la playa. We have the subject in the verb voy, the preposition to, definite article la, and beach playa. So yes, it could be literally translated, voy a la playa.
Moving on. The next four techniques are used when literal translation does not work. And I will start with transposition.
Transposition is the process where parts of the speech change their sequence, so their organization. or the grammatical category when they are translated into the target language without changing the content and therefore the message remains the same. In transposition, you might change a noun for a verb or an adjective or an adverb, but you do not change the mood or the tense of the verbs. So for example, hand knitted, the noun followed by the participle, will be translated into tejido a mano, which is now the participle, plus an adverbial phrase. So clearly you can see that there was a change in the sequence of the speech and also there was a grammatical category change, right?
Let's look at another example. The Mexican border was the key topic in the last election. So let's say you had to translate the sentence.
Now, these two sentences that I chose here are likely to be translated using transposition. So... I'm going to show you in a minute what I came up with, but I would like you to think right now how you translate them.
I don't mean to cut you off, but let's move on. So the Mexican border was the key topic in the last election. Now, I translated it. in the following way.
La frontera con México fue el tema principal en las últimas elecciones. Now, as you can see here, the adjective Mexican became the noun Mexico. La frontera con México instead of Mexican border. Also, so here I've done a grammatical category change, right? An adjective for a noun.
Also, I have changed the sequence. or the organization of the sentence. And the last election became en las últimas elecciones. So I have switched the two, right? Let's see the second sentence.
There's a reason for life. Now, again, I don't know what you came up with, but I would translate that as hay una razón para vivir, in which case I have changed for life, which is a noun, for para vivir, which is a verb. Next, we have something similar to transposition, which is called modulation. Modulation is about using a phrase that is different in the source language and the target language, but yet it conveys the same idea. Modulation changes the semantics and shifts the point of view of the source language without altering its meaning.
So what do I mean by that, by changing the point of view? So, for instance, te lo dejo, right here, te lo dejo. Te lo dejo literally means that I, the subject, leave something to you, right?
So literally, that would be translated as I leave it to you. However, knowing English and Spanish, I know that it sounds unnatural and that what I actually mean by this and the more natural way to translate it would be by saying you can have it. So as you can see, we have shifted the point of view here.
que lo dejo to you can have it. There's a point of view shift. Same thing happens with it's not difficult. It's not difficult to do. It's not difficult to do.
Literally translated would be no es difícil de hacerlo, right? Now I'm going to change the point of view or shift the point of view a bit because the more natural way to translate that in Spanish would be es fácil de hacerlo, which actually in Spanish then I know that it implies that it's easy. Es fácil de hacerlo as opposed to es natural. difficult to do which is more commonly used in English we have another example you're welcome you're welcome means you know you're welcome literally translated is estas bienvenido which we know does not convey the message that we're trying to convey so in Spanish the most natural way to translate that would be de nada like meaning let go it's for nothing so those are examples of modulation So, in a way, I would say that modulation allows us to sound better and more natural in the target language.
Next, we have something very similar to modulation, which is called equivalence. Equivalence is very similar to modulation because you can convey the same idea, but you will use different styles, structures, or words. Again, this technique is about getting the message to be as natural as possible in the target language. It is the preferred method for translating idioms.
idioms, advertising slogans, nominal or adjectives or phrases, etc. I will show you a few idioms that need to be translated using equivalents. You're about to see a quick video, and you'll hear three common expressions, three common idioms in Spanish that could not be translated literally, and therefore they have to be given an equivalent to how we express it in English.
Expression number six is... Creerse la última Coca-Cola en el desierto. Which literally means to think you're the last Coke in the desert. In English, we would say to think you're the best thing since sliced bread. Now repeat after me.
Creerse la última Coca-Cola en el desierto. Perfect! Expression number seven is tomar el pelo. Which literally means to take hold of the hair. In English.
we would say to pull one's leg. Now it's your turn to say it. Tomar el pelo. Excellent!
Expression number eight is no saber ni papa de algo, which literally means not know a potato about something. In English, we would say not to have a clue. Now... Okay, so as you can see, not one of those three expressions could be translated literally to English because they wouldn't make any sense.
If I say, I don't know a potato about translation techniques, it wouldn't make any sense. But saying, I don't have a clue about translation techniques, which is the equivalent, then that makes perfect sense. The last technique in my presentation is compensation.
In general terms, compensation can be used when something cannot be translated. and the meaning that is lost, it is expressed somewhere else in the translation. Compensation is basically inserting something extra in the target language to try to reproduce the same effect of the source language. For example, English does not express gender or definite article, and therefore a translator would need to compensate by making a reference somewhere else to make this point clear. So, el gato en la gata.
The definite article, el, let us know that it's masculine, and la, gata, let us know that it's feminine. So when I say, la gata le dio de comer a su gatito, I would have to compensate that in English by adding something like her to make it clear that la gata, as it was expressed in Spanish, it's a female cat. So I would say, the cat fed her kitten.
We see the same kind of problem, one might say it's a problem, when you're translating usted. Because in English, we don't have that formality. In English, you just have you.
So then that's an example when you would need to compensate to kind of explain or to make up for the loss of that translation. In conclusion, as our teacher always says, there are many ways to skin a cat. And the aforementioned are only techniques.
Ultimately, it is important to remember that translation is not just a movement between two languages, but also between two cultures, and therefore we should do our best to try to be as accurate as possible.