Odd Collocations
Posted by transubstantiation on March 15, 2007
It is strange how collocations work in different languages. When considering collocations, idioms and set phrases in Indo-European languages then the common root is often Latin which has given birth to hundreds of idioms, proverbs and the suchlike. Translation often becomes difficult when trying to transfer a metaphor or collocation over to another culture. It is worth looking at a few examples here.
In English, we might say “birthing an idea”, “the author gave birth to some great characters”, we might also say “give birth to a concept”. (Examples taken from corpus evidence)
Similarly, in Polish we might hear “pytania rodzą się”, “rodzą się uczucia”, “rodzą się znaki pytania”, “rodzi się koncepcja” or “rodzący się opór mniejszości”. (Examples taken from corpus evidence)
The above examples may not be so difficult to translate, but what happens when we hear a phrase like “rodzić kamień” when a person is admitted to a hospital with kidney stones. We would of course not say “to birth a stone” - this would sound odd. In English we talk of “passing a stone”.
Translation is all about transfer and communication, emotion and understanding but good translation is all about delicacy, refinement and precision.
March 15, 2007 at 8:33 pm
It would be so much easier to translate such phrases literally, like in one of the funny examples - “thank you from the mountain”. But it is the essence of the translation work, and the greatest difficulty for all translators: be familiar with both cultures(target and source)and be able to find equivalents that work best in a given context.
March 15, 2007 at 10:32 pm
I agree that it is very difficult if not impossible to know all the collocations from foreign language and when to use them…
But at the same time I wonder how it happens that in such different languages and so different cultures there are so many similar collocations, idioms, etc. Maybe it is because of the language origins, or maybe it is because people in fact are not so different around the world
March 16, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Luke Rejter: The question is, how can this be undertaken? How to become functionally fluent in both cultures?
March 16, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Sylwia Krawczyk: As mentioned above, the collocations that we share (in English, German, Polish etc) all stem from a common root (our European culture and our mother tongue - Indo-European) as well as a shared historical lingua franca - Latin.
March 16, 2007 at 6:20 pm
“The question is, how can this be undertaken? How to become functionally fluent in both cultures?”
I would say that the best solution is to live in both realities - at least for some time, and acquire as much as possible.
March 16, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Indeed. One needs to taste both cultures, “realities” etc in order to ‘feel’ and understand the ins and outs of it.
March 19, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I was wondering if translating collocation from one language into another is really possible, even if we really know both coutries and both languages. I think it is impossible to achieve good results in translating but only similar one.
March 19, 2007 at 3:23 pm
If one takes the view that translation is impossible then the answer is quite simply ‘no’. However, it’s probably best not to be too down-hearted and attempt the translation of collocations. Together with idioms and set phrases, they are the cultural building blocks of language.
March 22, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Well, as we can see translation is possible (because many people do it) however, for me translation of collocations is quite difficult and not everyone do it correctly. I mean that these idioms and phrases used in collocations are a little bit complicated.
March 22, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Yes, but the question is what can or can not be done about it…
March 22, 2007 at 10:28 pm
One thing for sure can be done - keep trying to do the best.
March 22, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Obviously, but “the best” needs to be quantifiable and open to analysis.
April 24, 2007 at 8:11 am
Collocations, idioms, metaphores and the like are very often mistakenly translated just because they are translated ‘word for word’. Sometimes transaltors forget about the deeper meaning of this lexical units (especially in the case of metaphores and idioms). Sometimes translators do not think about the fact that these sentences or expressions simply sound badly in the target language.I think that metaphores and idioms are particularly difficult to translate, as in their case translation must take place at the level of the meaning, not the language itself. And here, a very important thing is the knowledge of the source text and target text culture.
April 24, 2007 at 8:23 am
Do you think lexical units have ‘deeper’ meaning. A metaphor or idiom is greater than the sum of its parts, therefore it is ‘above and beyond’ the simple meaning of the lexical units therein. An example of difficult lexical units with what you termed ‘deeper’ meaning might be: http://transubstantiation.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/cultural-anomalies-part-i/
April 25, 2007 at 9:58 am
What I just wanted to say is that they cannot be translated word for word, as it is sometimes done. We have to think about the meaning.
April 25, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Very true…
August 9, 2007 at 4:10 pm
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