The translator’s empathy with both the author and the target language determines whether a translation is good or excellent. But even the best translation cannot be neutral. Likewise, AI is only as neutral as its input. AI fails to consider the intended audience. It cannot convey emotions, and it does not guarantee privacy. Good translators deliver a translation that reads as if it were written in the target language.
A good translation is the transfer of a text by a particular author into another language. This is done without losing the specific content, style or language of the original text and in a way that is appropriate in terms of content, style, language and emotion.
An author has the right to have his or her thoughts, writing style and personality conveyed as accurately as possible in another language. He or she should be recognisable in the translated text.
Translators are artists of the language
A good translation reflects the culture, life, history and human relationships of the source language in the target language. The reader in the target language must have an understanding of the text, the characters and the situation in the source language. Ideally, the reader will not even be aware that he or she is reading a translation. The reader will be given the impression that the author has written the text directly in his or her own language.
Good translators are faithful to the author, allowing him/her to shine in another language. Whether a translation is good or excellent depends on the translator’s empathy with the author and the target language.
In one way or another, every literary translator will be able to confirm these statements. But they will be too pathetic for translators who work for the courts, for news or scientific journals, or in the business world.
But even in this field, there is more to translation than simply translating from a source language to a target language. Here, too, the culture and the interpersonal relationships of the target country have to be taken into account in the translation.
However, what is more important in these areas is impartiality. Translators should not take a stance, nor should they allow their opinions and attitudes to come to the fore.
But is it possible to be neutral when writing? Is it possible to write something without letting anyone know what you think? – No.
No writer can completely hide how he or she feels and thinks. Especially in longer pieces, authors will show their personality through their word choice, punctuation and writing style.
And that’s a good thing! That’s what makes a text unique and worth reading. Let the personality of the writer shine through.
It also means that even a translation (however well done) cannot be completely neutral and divorced from the author. All translators colour their translations with their own style and attitude. A translation shows not only the work of the author, but also the work of the translator. It is all one: author, translator and work.
Textual neutrality
A text cannot be neutral. The author reveals his or her opinion, sometimes unconsciously, through the choice of words, tense and/or sentence structure. The choice of words has an impact on the message of the text and gives it direction. For example, when authors use the passive voice, they are distancing themselves from the message of the sentence they are writing.
There are words that are perceived or evaluated as positive in themselves, and there are words that have negative connotations, e.g. feast – grub, gourmandise – gobble, whizz – rush, prance – roll, blossom – burst, stroll – traipse.
Verbs, adverbs and adjectives can create images in the reader’s mind. It is the writer’s choice of verbs, adverbs and adjectives that determines what these images look like – dark and gloomy, negative and repulsive, or rather bright and friendly, positive and inviting. The reader is able to visualise what is being described.
Can’t be neutral
I do not claim to be neutral or impartial. In one form or another, my opinion will certainly find its way into the texts. However, I will do my best not to write in a way that is offensive, polarising or polemical. A certain bias or social and political stance may emerge from my writings. I cannot prevent this because I am a human author. Even an artificial intelligence – a computer, however large – is as neutral as the source texts that feed it.
Translators and AI
Translators like to use the computer as a tool to help them write their texts – as a word processor, but also as an electronic dictionary or a thesaurus.
Machine translation tools are very useful for quickly translating long texts. The text can simply be copied and pasted into the translating tool and the computer returns a translation within seconds. Depending on the requirements that are placed on the translation, it may already be usable, but it will only be good if it is revised by a human being.
AI-assisted translation is the most advanced form of machine or computer-assisted translation. A kind of neural network that mimics our brain processes huge amounts of data using powerful algorithms, linking information from surrounding texts and previous translations, reliably implementing the specified terminology and making no mistakes. Apart from energy – and not a little of it – AI-assisted translation costs the user very little; it is very cost-effective.
However, any AI machine translator is only as good as the data and information that is fed into it. For example, an AI does not have a sense of cultural, regional or day-to-day differences. It has no idea whether a term is familiar or ‚in‘, or whether it is currently ‚out‘ and is frowned upon.
AI does not take the target audience into account and is not able to convey emotions. If a translation needs to be precisely tailored to a specific readership, if certain sentiments need to be conveyed, then AI’s automated translation isn’t going to cut it. A human being has to put the finishing touches on it.
Trusted content needs people
Even in sensitive areas such as medicine or law, where there is no room for error, AI translation alone is not good enough; humans need to do the fine work. Not every type of text is therefore suitable for pure machine or AI translation.
Furthermore, AI translation cannot guarantee privacy. Sensitive information should not be entrusted to a machine, but rather to trustworthy people. Even if a self-learning AI-assisted machine can provide translations with correct content, the stylistic fine-tuning should be done by humans.
Creative translators
Good translators are imaginative and creative with their language. They preserve the meaning, tone, mood and subtleties of the words in the source text and skilfully transfer them to the target text.
The result is a translation that reads like an original, as if it were written in the target language. Translators use up-to-date vocabulary, find appropriate phrases and avoid empty words and superfluous sentences.
Good translators are accurate, reliable and punctual. They do their research when things are unclear and are interested in a pleasant and productive relationship with their clients.
To the German translation of this article: Übersetzer-Geheimnis: Das machen erfolgreiche Übersetzer