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Translation direction | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5218 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 41 of 46 14 March 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
I find the debate about the usefulness of (hyper)literal vs free translations quite interesting. I don't, however, see a conflict in using both. They have very different purposes. If I understand correctly, the purpose of using a literal translation is to get insight into the mechanics of L2 language by seeing how corresponding elements of L1 are organized in L2. Sounds like a good idea to me, and I think we all do it to some extent because we can "see" how L2 works. But there are limitations and caveats. The assumption behind literal translations is that you can map in some form of one to one relationship elements of L2 to L1. This works only to a certain point. Let's look at some examples. Here something that works well in French (L2). Je vois le chien I see the dog Let's put it in the past. J'ai vu le chien I've seen the dog Not bad, but one could question whether I've seen is the appropriate translation of J'ai vu depending on the context. Now let's make this a question. There are two ways. Avez-vous vu le chien? Have you seen the dog? This works quite well in appearance. Here's the other form? Est-ce que vous avez vu le chien? Is it that you have seen the dog? In this last sentence, one could question whether Est-ce que should really be translated by Is it that it really is more of a pure question marker than should not be broken down into three elements. For example, when we look at a similar English phrase: Did you see the dog? What does Did mean? How would it be translated literally into French? I really don't know. One could argue that Did here has nothing to do with the verb To do and is just a question marker with a tense aspect. As long as you stay with relatively simple structures where one can readily match elements in the two languages, literal translation can work and certainly can be useful. But there are limits when L2 has very different structures. Here's a very common example with the idiomatic translation: Il faut que vous veniez tout de suite. (You must come right away) Frankly, I have no idea how one could translate this literally. Maybe somebody here can have a go at it. Similarly, constructions with pronominal verbs tend to be meaningless. Je me suis loué une voiture. (I rented a car.) I me am rented a car. One could argue that the literal translation here gives us insight into how French syntax works. Maybe. I tend to think it confuses more than it helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5939 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 42 of 46 14 March 2012 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
A quick attempt at literal translations.
It is necessary that you come right away.
I (for me) rented a car - I rented a car for myself. However, I thought 'se louer' also meant to be pleased, so I may have mistranslated. Edited by DaraghM on 14 March 2012 at 3:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5169 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 43 of 46 14 March 2012 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Il faut que vous veniez tout de suite. It must-be that you come right away. I suppose some people may find this type of in-between translation to be a good temporary tool to help them remember the underlying structures of their L2. Might help get an instinctive feel for where the words go when you need to use these structures live. I guess I sometimes do that to make sense of complex structures, but only as a temporary crutch until I can access the resulting sentence directly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5218 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 44 of 46 14 March 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't want to go offtopic with this question of literal translation, but I would like to point out that according what would seem to be the definition of hyperliteral translation, one would have to translate at least word for word. So, we would have something like:
Il faut que vous veniez tout de suite. Il must that you come all of next. Or for example, how could one translate literally something like the following into another language? The system will be up and running in an hour. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Balliballi Groupie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4480 days ago 70 posts - 115 votes Studies: Korean | Message 45 of 46 15 March 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
You should write the same post that you wrote to me TO YOURSELF. Remember you agreed with me when you agreed with Arekkusu. And whether you meant to put the two quotes (one disagreeing with me and the other agreeing with Arekkusu) next to each other in the same post is completely irrelevant. Do keep on ignoring the fact that you contradicted yourself. (That is what I mean by your having faulty reading comprehension.) Edited by Balliballi on 15 March 2012 at 12:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4487 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 46 of 46 15 March 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Balliballi: I'm sorry, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
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