tips for translating

[hearandobey]

assalamu alaykum,

just wanted to ask for some tips for translating articles/passages from books from arabic to english. sometimes i find myself taking a very literal word-for-word approach... for example: ما تلمس إليه الحاجة lol

any tips on how i could over come this? any other advice re. translating from arabic to english in general? jzk

[Abuz Zubair]

Excellent thread. Whenever I translate, I try to express the Arabic as I would express it in English, even if it means turning a 2 word Arabic sentence into a 10 word English sentence. Literal translation has ruined the spoken and written English of Western Muslims. We have developed our own vocabulary without even realising.

One example: In many ahadeeth it may state something like دخل أبو بكر على عائشة and we translated it as: Abu Bakr entered upon 'Aisha, and I have yet to find this sort of syntax in English literature. We simply made it up and it has now become widely acceptable. We don't even question it. And this sort of English is disastrous for an average English reader. I will mention more examples as I come across in this thread.

[justabro]

this is a good textbook on the subject... used at some university for graduate level classes on Arabic translation:

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Arabic-Translation/dp/041525065X

otherwise, I would suggest that when you finish translating, go back over it and try and reword things to be clearer in English. The structure of sentences in Arabic can often get quite complex and convoluted. It works in Arabic, but sounds horrendous in English. Try and simplify things by breaking them down, even if that means taking a bit of liberties with syntax and word order while still being "faithful" to the original.

And finally, practice makes perfect

[Abuz Zubair]

liberties with syntax and word order while still being "faithful" to the original.


Often you cannot be faithful without taking liberties.

[hearandobey]

today one of my student's couldn't understand "jumlah mufeeda" and i couldn't give a precise translation in english. okay i gave "beneficial sentence" but not sure if english people/speakers would get it... i just ended up explaining what its about.

[justabro]

today one of my student's couldn't understand "jumlah mufeeda" and i couldn't give a precise translation in english. okay i gave "beneficial sentence" but not sure if english people/speakers would get it... i just ended up explaining what its about.

its a complete sentence or a complete thought as opposed to jumlah ghayr mufida which does not constitute a complete thought

[عُبَيْدُ رَبِّهِ]

It's about being liberal, not fearing to cut down sentences or make them longer or add words that do not appear in the arabic text at all or drop them out.

Like the brother said, there is a difference between turning a text into a language and expressing it it in a language. We got a special word for these two in my language but I don't know how to put that in english. I remember Anwar al-Aulaqi once in a lecture translating bi'tu wa khasirtu as I would be a desperate looser. That made me smile and enjoy. If one is to reflect even on some translations of some tv shows (in my country they do that since english is not the language here) he would just realize the difference between well known and traditional professional work on the field and the 'I entered upon him' amateur stuff.

I hope people would bring this topic back and start posting interesting notions and tips.

[Abu Bakr as-Somali]

You should have correspondence with a English speaker so when you translate you send it to him/her so he can see if it makse sense.

[hearandobey]

You should have correspondence with a English speaker so when you translate you send it to him/her so he can see if it makse sense.

yes i do that and it really helps.

[Fajr]

What about translating peculiar phrases and idioms? How do people overcome that?

Sometimes I think it's wholly better just to quote the idiom and without translating it, just give a rough meaning of it and in what context it's used.

[عُبَيْدُ رَبِّهِ]

Was going to ask about that too.

I've considered just replacing them with something similar in my language. For example, you never see "Holy cow!" translated as "Holy cow!" in my language, it would just look really stupid (ofcourse we as muslims don't say that anyway, but just as an example). Rather we find out the intend behind it and say it as we would say it.

[Abu Al Sawarem]

What is the best way to translate this:

تخبط وتيه،