News lost during Translation

Language is a way through which a man communicates with other human being. This communication of language can be through use of words, pictures, video clips, sign language, etc. Communication through language through talk or verbal use of words is the easiest and the clearest way of communication.  But this can happen only when sender of information and receiver follow a common verbal language. If there is difference in language while communicating, the message is lost as the receiver is unable to understand the language used by its sender. This is where translation comes in handy. But many times it is observed that due to translation the meaning of the news or information and the essence of the story is lost. Translation acts as one of the major communication barriers. The Italians have a saying: "traduttore tradittore" meaning "the translator is a traitor". Sometimes when translating, there might be the difficulty, of finding a word that expresses or means the same thing, and because there isn’t one specific word that means the same as the other, instead of putting one word, many are used, to describe the words meaning.

Each language has a specific way in which the words structure a sentence (grammatical rules to structure a sentence), so that the sentence can make sense. Because meaning changes from one language to another, words need to be added or omitted and the structure of the sentence needs to change, so that meaning of the words can be more accurately translated.

When translating, at times one needs to translate the meaning, and not the words, because the words could have different meanings. On an American TV Channel Hilary Clinton said that there should be ‘resetting’ between nations. Some Russian Channel misunderstood the word ‘Reset’ and broadcasted it as ‘Overcharged’ in Russian language. This where language can sometimes get slippery.  Sometimes even though the structure has changed the meaning can still be the same, they are just said in different ways. Like in America the word ‘closet’ means a ‘cupboard’ whereas in British a ‘cupboard’ is called ‘cupboard.’

Each language has it’s own set of grammatical rules, which is why when one word is translated into a different language, the grammatical structure also has to be correct, in order for the sentence to make sense. So in many cases, when translating, the grammatical structure needs to change too. After translating the words or sentence, and changing the grammatical structure, when the meanings are compared in different languages, they are more or less the same. But if you translate the words in their direct meaning, the sentence won’t make sense.

The first thing to remember is that translation is the transfer of meaning from one language to another. It is not the transfer of words from language to language. You must translate the meaning of what is being said, rather than do it word-for-word. This is because languages are not just different words. Different languages also have different grammar, different word orders, sometimes even words for which other languages do not have any equivalents. There are infinite numbers of possibilities that can affect the matter; equally, there are infinite numbers of possibilities that can affect language, which are almost all lost in translation. True translation, like alteration, is nearly impossible.