“I never said that English was an easy language” – these words by Mr Webster, a lecturer at the Institute for Translation and Interpreting at Heidelberg University, are etched in my memory for eternity and beyond. He would go on to recite typical pitfalls like “clocks and watches, scholars and scientists”, etc.
But Mr Webster was right: to those saying that English is an easy language, I say that, quite simply, they have obviously have not had sufficient exposure to it. And that is the very reason why, in the future, it will be key to have demanding translations rendered by a human. It goes without saying that professionals will continue to include more and more technology. However, there are things that only the human mind can spot. Otherwise, Herr Stein will inadvertently become Mister Stone, and Frau Kirch will most likely end up being called Miss Church. Add to this the mind-boggling confusion caused by clocks and watches… how is any software to know which one to choose? Let’s look at a quick example taken from company law, shall we: Aktionäre and Gesellschafter are two German terms that both translate into English as shareholders. So far, so good – but there’s more: shareholder is the go-to term used in the context of corporations – otherwise, Gesellschafter must be translated as partner. And if that were not enough, there are members!“
To this day, translation software fails miserably in figuring out this distinction. Yet, even for a human translator, these things can be rather tricky since the issues outlined above are simple compared to everything that’s out there.