There are several obstacles in the translation process just like in every field. Some are faced by the clients, and some by the translators. While processing translation, confusion and frustration are familiar feelings even for the most experienced translators or clients that have used translation services many times. So, what are the problems of translation? In this article, let’s read over some of the most typical issues from both translators’ and clients’ viewpoints!

Structure of Translation Language

Just like every other language, English has its own structure that conforms with agreed rules and might have vast differences from each other. For instance, in French an adjective is placed after a noun, while in English, the adjective sits before the noun. To make the communication more natural, linguists frequently have to add, remove, or rearrange source words accordingly.

Compound Words 

Two or three nouns and adjectives put together to form a compound word such as notebook; hyphenated like long-term. Some of compound words ply nothing of their original word – for example, butterfly, hotdog; some mean only half of the term, like say bellboy; but some of them are straightforward and mean exactly what each word means like mailbox. Translators might struggle with how to choose equivalent words in the source language in such a situation.

Missing Term

Since the objects may not be used by the target audience, or those action or activities are not frequently performed in the country of the target language, not every word in source languages have an exact match in the target languages.

Specialized Knowledge 

Sometimes it’s not enough for some kinds of documents that full of technical jargon, or describe specific procedures or activities in detail, even though specialized translators have experience in technical or medical knowledge. For example, while translating the manual books of an X-ray scanner, translators might be surrounded by complex and specialized terms. Time extension is essential to conduct accurate and reliable translations with this kind of content.

Time Limitation

Since most clients need the translated content as soon as possible, this is one of the most common problems that both translator and clients encounter; but to conduct a high-quality output, translators have to spend more time to come up with the most accurate words. If the document is straightforward and translators can easily finish it within the deadline, it could be not a significant issue. However, in terms of complicated content such as technical, legal documents which are full of specialized terms, having a Urgent translation is not a proper choice to have high-quality translations.

Expense and Quality

The most common problem faced by clients who are looking for translation services is to find a balance between cost and quality. The translation of medical, technical, legal content when you can rarely afford to have any mistakes or near mistakes would be a practical case. It could lead to serious damage such as health and reputation damage if they are not error-free, misinterpretation by the readers and wrong usage. To come up with the most precise translation it requires translators to highly focus on every detail accordingly. Certainly, it’s understandable that the rate is also at the upper level with more efforts to facilitate the outputs. Ensure that you know how to evaluate the quality of translation output as this is a classic dilemma encountered by the clients.

Translation office problems have existed for centuries and both clients and translators should know about the most popular obstacles to prepare for it. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below if you have struggled with many   other problems in translation.