The UK faces a severe shortfall in language skills. For decades the UK has lagged behind Europe and the rest of the world.
Perhaps it is due to the notion that “the whole world speaks English”. However, to effectively reach a wide proportion of overseas markets, it pays to speak your target consumer’s native tongue fluently and authentically. That’s exactly what Bubbles translators specialise in.
However, not all languages are straightforward for a translator. The question “What is the most difficult language to translate into?” is impossible to answer. In a purely linguistic sense, all languages are equally difficult to translate into. However, complications can arise when language obscurity meets subject matter expertise.
In this article, we will explore the nuances of translation that create interesting challenges for our translators and project managers.
Difficulties vs. Costs
When a client requests a new quote for a project, we invariably base the project costs on the amount of source text that needs translating, applied to a rate depending on the language combination.
In the vast majority of cases, project costs are based on the word count of the text to be translated and can be quite easily obtained by using the ‘word count’ feature in Word (or any other word processing software), or even a manual count if it’s a scanned PDF document that can’t be converted accurately.
However, some languages don’t fall into this category…
Chinese and Japanese
It is difficult to compare Chinese and Japanese to languages with an alphabet. This is because these languages use characters instead of words to convey meaning.
The text in Chinese and Japanese documents is more condensed compared with English, as the languages use characters rather than words, which means more meaning is conveyed in less space. Due to this, when scanning a Chinese or Japanese document the amount of text included can be quite deceptive compared to an English document, or any other language which uses the Roman alphabet.
For Chinese and Japanese documents, we apply a rate per character, and there are typically many more characters per page than equivalent English words; as such the price per page for Chinese and Japanese translations is consequently higher.
Thai
Our project managers often swear that Thai is the most difficult language to provide a quotation for. Thai, unlike Chinese and Japanese, uses words to convey meaning, rather than characters. However, this doesn’t mean it is easy to calculate the number of words in a Thai language document. The reason for this is that Thai words are not separated by spaces in the same way that English and the majority of the world’s languages are.
So, when performing a word count, the tool effectively counts all the text as one word, unless separate paragraphs and punctuation have been included.
To overcome this challenge we lean on the experience and judgement of our Thai translators to estimate the number of words, and the effort needed to translate them, to calculate the best-value cost for our clients.
A change of subject…
When considering the difficulty of translating into a certain language we must simultaneously consider the subject matter. This is because we take on challenging projects in a variety of sectors from major-brand multinational marketing to complex mechanical engineering.
Let’s take the medical or biotechnology fields as an example. In these areas, an added level of human experience and expertise is layered on top of the linguistic challenges.
For translators, there is a research challenge, whereby the terminology being used must be decoded and the appropriate context given to various word choices. It may be that our translator gets the feel for how a client uses language by reviewing associated documents and the company’s website. With this understanding of tone and nuance, meaning can be carried across into the target language. Translation (literally defined as carrying across) can only be effective with a thorough understanding of context.
Our translators’ skill lies in the difficulty of understanding often niche texts and effectively conveying that meaning through translation. By fully comprehending the purpose of a document, our translators can concentrate on conveying the message, feeling or action that our client is hoping the reader will take away. Subject matter understanding also allows translators to create consistent communications that reflect a company’s brand or purpose.
The best of both worlds
We started this article by posing the question “What is the most difficult language to translate into?” But we’ve inevitably gone on to discuss how the real difficulties of translation fall into the realms of language obscurity and subject matter expertise. To a Western eye, the way Thai is structured for instance may appear bizarre. However, to our Thai translators this is second nature.
To some translators, even if they are considered native and fluent, a document written by a biotechnology company might be impenetrable, but to our subject matter experts, the language nuances and jargon will be familiar. That’s why we always use not only language experts but subject matter experts for every project.
For fast and accurate language translation services you can rely on, get in touch with our dedicated project managers today.