The idea of ‘untranslatable’ words is a trend that appeared a few years ago and isn’t showing signs of going away. While it is always entertaining to discover whole lists of words that don’t have an exact translation in English, let’s look at what ‘untranslatable’ words really are and what translators do when they come across these words in a text.
Are Words Really Untranslatable?
Concepts that have one word to describe them in one language often have no such exact description in another, or even in any other language. This doesn’t always mean that such concepts do not exist in other languages at all but simply that one language and culture have found a way to name something very precisely, perhaps because of the importance of that particular concept to that culture.
For translators, especially those who work with literary or creative texts, this can present both a challenge in conveying the exact meaning of a word in a way that is the closest to the original and also a wonderful opportunity to bring new ideas into their target language.
Translating The Untranslatable: Techniques
There are many techniques that translators use when faced with translating ‘untranslatable’ words. Here are some of them:
Adaptation
Adaptation is used to express something very specific to a particular language or culture in a completely different way that is more suitable to the target language and culture. This technique works well when the concept that is being translated already exists in the target language.
Literal translation and Calque
The process of translating a text ‘word-for-word’ is called literal translation. Calque is a similar approach where a phrase is translated using word-for-word translation, for example, where the English word “skyscraper” is translated into French as “grate-ciel”.
Borrowing
The Russian word “перестройка” is a great example of a borrowed word that has entered the English language as “perestroika”. This technique is often used when the concept that is being translated doesn’t exist in exactly the same way in the target language. “Perestroika” means “restructuring” but the word “restructuring” doesn’t fully convey the exact process that was happening in the Soviet Union during the perestroika.
Reformulation / equivalence
Translating idioms, proverbs, or advertising slogans can be difficult when a phrase that is well-known and understood in one language has no such significance in another. The reformulation technique is useful in these situations, allowing translators to convey a message in a completely different way while retaining the meaning.
This is a very creative process and is often used in trans-creation. Here is an example of reformulation: the Russian idiom “язык хорошо подвешен” – literally “tongue well-hung” – is translated as having the “gift of the gab”.
Transposition
Defined as “changing the sequence of parts of speech”, the technique of transposition can be helpful when translating words that exist in the target language but in a different grammatical form, as in this translation of the French “après sa mort” into English as “after she died”.
Other techniques
Other techniques can also be used when attempting to translate ‘untranslatable’ words, such as creation (adding a word or phrase that did not exist in the original text), amplification (adding an explanation of the concept or word, either as an additional description, paraphrasing, or even as a footnote), modulation (using a phrase that is different from the original in order to create a more natural-sounding text), or cultural equivalent adaptation (finding a concept, word, or name in the target language that conveys the same message but is more suitable for the target culture), as well as several more.
Whatever the translation technique, it is important to remember that the ultimate goal and challenge of translation is to create a feeling of reading an original text – with all its quirks, its cultural background, and its beauty – as if it had been written in the target language from the start.
By Maia Nikitina
