Not to toot my own horn, but some people have been kind enough to compliment me on how well I can speak English, even though it's not my native language. Some people have even been kind enough to suggest that I become a voice artist.
As stated on the front page, I speak Dutch, English, and German. Such knowledge invariably comes with requests to translate or interpret from one language to another. On the Internet, it also comes with people who use software translators to translate something you wrote in a language that is foreign to them...and then believe that they understand what you meant. This doesn't always work that well.
In this post, I will do my best to explain the issue. I'll be using English and Dutch for it, but, as Dutch and German are closely related, you could say the same things about English and German.
Some of you might be thinking there are ways around what I'm about to describe. You're right, but because this post is (also) about translation done by software... Let's just say that there are things only us humans can grasp. Lastly, please don't attempt to read this with automatic translation. I can pretty much guarantee that this post will turn into an incomprehensible mess.
Enough prefacing! Let's get to the topic at hand.
The Dutch word for a female friend is vriendin, but vriendin also translates to girlfriend. The Dutch word for a male friend is vriend, but vriend also translates to boyfriend.
If this looks like I copied and pasted a sentence and replaced a few words...I confess, I did.Add to this the fact that friend can be translated to Dutch as both vriend and vriendin, and it should be obvious to you that translating such words can be a bit of a challenge. To translate these words properly, you need context, and here's the thing. Enabling software to understand context is not an easy task. That's assuming the necessary information is available in the original text.
I remember chatting with a friend who said that she was going to meet someone. Incidentally, she is female and married. Thinking that it was synonymous, I ended up suggesting that she was seeing someone. Needless to say, when I realized what I had done, I was rather embarrassed. I'm very pleased to tell you that I managed to repair the damage and that we are still friends. So, what happened? Let me explain.
In Dutch, seeing someone means just what it says. Like, I can see the screen in front of me, of the computer that I'm using to type this post on. In English, those same words come with a romantic connotation, that I failed to account for. Oops!
Now, let's talk about drinking. When someone in English speaks of drinking, they generally refer to drinking an alcoholic beverage. I'm not sure for how many Dutch people this is the case, but when I speak of drinking, I mean just that: drinking.
I hope that this post will help you understand what goes into translating and interpreting between languages. As is the case with all my blog posts - even if I don't always say it - please feel free to share this blog post, or indeed, my entire website.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, then please let me know in the form down below.
Please fill in all three fields or the form will not be sent. Your comment will not appear right away.