I’m occasionally called in to translate stuff from Chinese to English or vice versa, and I always struggle with colloquial expressions and people’s names. In cases where an official translation exists I obviously go for that one, but when it doesn’t I always panic. For the former I try to get the closest meaning or equivalent expression, but for names I can never decide to go for a phonetic or meaning translation.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying about names. Is there a convention of translating people’s names via their meanings in Chinese? I do French to English translation, and I wouldn’t render Miséricorde LeBrun as Mercy Brown, for instance. (That’s not the strongest example, but the best one I can come up with right now.)
I was fairly instrumental in setting up the core processes that are standard now in software localization. As a result I have managed the translation of many millions of words into many dozens of languages, many times for simultaneous release.
So I feel comfortable in saying and recommending this, even to individual translators, because it works to increase the quality and predictability of translations, although it may be counter to the pressure to simply “translate” and not have “process” and hence it affects the costs. But your client should oay different rates for different quality work, right?
First, and translation should be scanned for keywords and glossary type terms.
These should be translated initially and separately, and the client should sign off on them. They should use an independent trusted translator for that if they don’t have their own in-house source for that.
The two translators can hash out differences of opinion. The client gets final say always.
Once agreed upon, the terms should be used scrupulously in the actual complete translation.
Depending on the topic, if the source word is a neologism, there may not be a word to translate it to, and then you are making one up. I am sure I have managed the creation of many such computer and internet words in many languages over the years. Take this role seriously, but don’t fear it. You are in effect introducing a meme - there will be counter memes too at first, and then one will prevail. If if is not yours, that doesn’t mean you were wrong.
Three is much more to translation process than that, but this part of it that addresses the OP.
Hope this helps.
I am not a translator. However, I work with in subtitle translation and deal heavily with translation protocol issues.
Translating names, especially for non-Roman-alphabet languages, would be at our client’s discretion. Some studios have us transliterate names, whereas others ask us to submit for approval commonly-used or accepted translations. Others simply provide it to us and we use it consistently throughout a project. For some clients, the instructions apply across the board; for others, it’s a case-by-case basis.
For idiomatic phrases, it can be hard. Often it’s not possible to find an equivalent, equally-well-known phrase because the sentiment just does not exist in another language. When a idiomatic substitution isn’t possible, the phrases have been translated as simply and directly as possible-- for example, “a snowball’s chance in Hell” would go as “it’s impossible.” Less flavor, but flavor is secondary to accurate meaning.
I just do it by feel.
You have to “get” the register, and sense whether accuracy or flow is more important. You can produce a well-written text, or you can produce a perfectly accurate translation, but it’s very hard to do both.
With names, I usually go for a phonetic translation, within limits. If, for instance, it’s a biblical name, I often use the KJV translation - if it’s close enough. I’ll write “Gideon” (instead of, say, “Gid’on”, which is more accurate), but I won’t use “Ezekiel” or “Zebulon”, but rather “Yechezkel” or “Zevulun” - unless, of course, I’m referring to the actual books of the Bible.
Also, always remember that Google is your friend.
The bottom line is that there’s no such thing as a perfect translation.