Examples of Translation Problems

Here is a communicative translation of the provided lines from The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: - It was a beautiful sunny morning on June 27th, with the warm freshness of the peak of summer. Flowers were in full bloom and the grass was vibrantly green. - Starting around 10 o'clock, the villagers began gathering in the town square between the post office and the bank. In larger towns, there were so many people that the lottery took two days to complete, starting on June 26th. - But in this small village of about 300 people, the entire lottery process took less than two hours. It could begin at 10am and still finish in time for the villagers to return home for midday meals

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Examples of Translation Problems

Uploaded by

Noureldin Mohamed Abdelal

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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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• On my right hand there were lines of fishing

stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-

submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible
in its division of the domain of tropical fishes.
‫على يميني يد كانت خطوط الصيد حصص تشبه غموض •‬
‫نظام نصف مغمور لبامبو أسيجة غير مستوعب في تقسيمه‬
‫لمجال االستوائية األسماك‪• .‬‬

‫وكانت على يميني خطوط ألعمدة الصيد تشبه نظاما غامضا •‬

‫من سياج الخيزران نصف المغمورة غير المراعى في‬
‫تقسيماتها لحركة األسماك االستوائية‪• .‬‬
• They were new patients to me, all I had was the name, Olson.
• Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter is very sick.
• When I arrived I was met by the mother, a big startled looking woman, very clean and
• apologetic who merely said, Is this the doctor? and let me in.
• In the back, she added. You must excuse us, doctor, we have her in the kitchen where it is warm. It
is very damp here sometimes.
• The child was fully dressed and sitting on her father’s lap near the kitchen table. He
• tried to get up, but I motioned for him not to bother, took off my overcoat and started
• to look things over. I could see that they were all very nervous, eyeing me up and down
• distrustfully. As often, in such cases, they weren’t telling me more than they had to, it
• was up to me to tell them; that’s why they were spending three dollars on me.
• The child was fairly eating me up with her cold, steady eyes, and no expression to her
• face whatever.
• http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/force.html (accessed 17 October 2013)
What’s wrong?
• John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an
antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me, not two or three
times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually;
every nerve I had feared him and every morsel of flesh on my bones
shrank when he comes near. There were moments when I was
bewildered by the terror he inspired.
‫ هو عذب وعاقب أنا ليس اثنان أو ثالث‬.‫جون كان ال كثيرا حب له أمه وأخواته وعداء لي‬
‫ ليس‬،‫مرات في األسبوع‬
‫ كل عصب أنا لي خاف هو وكل جزء من اللحم على‬،‫ لكن باستمرار‬،‫مرة أو اثنتين في اليوم‬
‫لي عظم ارتجف عندما‬
.‫ كانت هناك لحظات عندما أنا كنت سيطرت بالرعب هو أوحى‬.‫هو جاء قريب‬

Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë

http://www.enotes.com/jane-eyre-text (accessed 12 March 2011)
Identify examples of literal translation
in the following sentences
• 1. I am afraid I lost all saved data. We are back to square one.
• .‫ عدنا للمربع األول‬.‫أخشى أني فقدت كل البيانات المخزنة‬
• ...................................................................................................
• .2She decided to throw the baby with the bath water and close the
shop forever because she lost few pounds.
• .‫ت بعض الجنيهات‬ ْ ‫خسر‬
َ ‫رت أن ترمي الطفل مع ماء الحمام وتغلق الدكان لألبد ألنها‬ ْ ‫قر‬ّ
• ...................................................................................................
• .3Hold your horses; we still have plenty of time.
• .‫ لدينا الكثير من الوقت‬،‫أمسك خيولك‬
Provide a faithful translation of the
following quotes.
• 1. For if the proper study of mankind is man, it
is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself
with the coherent, substantial and significant
creatures of fiction than with the irrational
and shadowy figures of real life.
• 2. Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever
so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at
all four corners. Often the attachment is
scarcely perceptible.
Provide communicative translation for the
following clauses, phrases and sentences
• Charity begins at home.
• Diamonds cut diamonds.
• Dead end
• Deadline
• Bottom line
• A burnt child dreads the fire.
Read the following SL and TL texts then find examples of
adaptation strategies and comment on them.

• He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he
had gone eighty four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days
a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s
parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao
[to be unlucky in fishing], which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy
had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the
first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with
his skiff empty.

‫ كان هناك رجل اعتاد الصيد لوحده في مركب شراعي صغير في‬,‫كان يا ما كان في قديم الزمان‬ •
.‫ وقد مضى عليه أربعة وثمانون يوما دون أن يصطاد ولو سمكة واحدة‬.‫لبحر‬
‫وقد صحبه فتى في األيام األربعين األولى ولكن بعد ذلك طلب والدا الفتى منه أن يذهب في قارب‬ •
‫ أطاع الفتى أمر والديه وذهب في قارب آخر واصطاد ثالث سمكات‬.‫آخر ألن الرجل حظه قليل‬
.‫ حزن الفتى لرؤية الرجل العجوز يعود خالي الوفاض كل يوم‬.‫في األسبوع األول‬
Translate the following excerpt from Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell, following
the translation method you find most appropriate. Explain why you have opted for a
particular method.

• It was a peculiarly beautiful book.

• Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had
not been manufactured for at least forty years past.

• He could guess, however, that the book was much older than that.

• He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy

quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had
been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it.

• Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops (‘dealing on

the free market’, it was called), but the rule was not strictly kept, because
there were various things, such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was
impossible to get hold of in any other way.
Follow communicative translation to translate the following lines
from The Lottery, a short story by Shirley Jackson.

• The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh
warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming
profusely and the grass was richly green.

• The people of the village began to gather in the square, between

the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns
there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had
to be started on June 2th.

• But in this village, where there were only about three hundred
people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could
begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to
allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.