Languages: How Accurate are Translations?

Title: Languages: How Accurate are Translations?

Date: 12 March 2011
Class: Spanish IB SL, Mandarin IB Ab nitio
Category: Other Classes

http://digihome.com.vn

            The idea of communication always fascinates me. It’s interesting how we are able to express our ideas, thoughts, feelings so that another person is able to understand us through the use of body language and words. But how do we fully know whether the other person understands what we’re saying? Of course, there are the situations where this is clearly obvious. For example, if I ask another person “Could you please bring me the cup on the table?” and the person brings me the cup, I could assume that this person understood me (empirical reasoning). However, was it the actual words that this person understood? Or was it my body language? I could’ve looked in that direction or I could’ve pointed to the cup. Are all types of body language controllable, even the most subtle glance in that direction? If body language plays such an important role in communication, is communication possible without body language? In other words, how effective are words itself? (Knowledge Issues)

            In class, students often use translators to express their ideas. Supposedly, the teachers are able to tell whether the student has used a translator or not depending on whether the grammar makes sense (empirical reasoning). Translators are often known to translate words by words regardless of the grammar of the language. If it is obvious that someone’s work consisted of translations from an online translator, how reliable are the translators? Are there exact translations of the words in every language, or are there words that only exist in one language? Is it then possible to express this word in other languages exactly? Can all words be described in such a manner that it fully explains what this person is trying to express? (Knowledge Issues) I remember my friend Wei Syn told me that there is this one word in Chinese that she cannot express in other languages. It was a word that meant more than happiness, more like “happily ever after” but not quite. [Connection] Could other people translate this word exactly into another language? Is language then, personal and have different meanings to each person? If this is true, then isn’t language subjective to each person? Does this mean that words and ideas being expressed never consist a concrete, definite meaning but are dependent on how one interprets it?