Changes in Translation

The requirements in translation are continually undergoing changes, demanding more refinement and creativity which take us further and further away from the use of machine translation. This refinement includes the development of specific glossaries and translation memories, as well as casting translators with expertise and awareness of specific industries, in order to capture the creativity and nuances, that clients wish to convey to multinational audiences.

Phrases that are untranslatable in certain languages such as “he sucked all the oxygen from the room,” need to be completely re-created to project the intended meaning. Even simple phrases such “massaging the scalp” in languages such as Swedish and Russian could be rendered nonsensical if carelessly translated. In Swedish, using the wrong word for “scalp” could occur when talking about “taking someone’s scalp”, as in “scalping”, or in medicine referring to the top of the head, but would definitely not be used in the cosmetic world! As for Russian, the word for “scalp” is translated as “the skin of your head,” which is not a very glamorous rendering and should be translated with wording that is more commonly used, such as “massaging your head.”