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Language and Culture
Culture has great influence on people\'s daily communications. You may find that, on many occasions, even though the translation is perfectly accurate, there could still be confusion or misunderstanding. For different people, a certain word or expression could have different meanings. Because of culture differences, a serious topic could sound funny; a harmless comment could be offensive. Because of culture differences, the best joke might not have the same effect to the audiences when told in a different language.
Language is of vital importance to culture. Some sociologists believe that language is the fundamental part of culture---without languages, different cultures could not be formed. On the other hand, language is also influenced by and reflecting culture. We may say that, language is the special aspect of a nation, it not only contains the history and culture back ground of a country, but also expresses the people\'s views and beliefs. To learn a language, to understand a language, first of all, one must learn to understand the culture behind it.
There are many languages in the world, and just as many different kind of cultures. As a result, people from different culture back ground, people speak different languages may experience difficulties when trying to communicate with each other.
- To translate and master a language, you have to learn more than pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary. In many cases, a direct translation might not be able to do the work. For example, the following signs were found in public facilities around the world, the grammar is correct and translations are accurate for each word, however, they just don\'t look right.
- In a Japanese Hotel ---If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
- A Zoo in Hungary –Please don\'t feed the animals. If you have any food, please give it to the guard on duty.
- Pub in Norway—Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
- Shop in Switzerland—Fur coats made for ladies from their skins.
- Dentist in Hong Kong—Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
- Dry clean shop in Thailand—Drop your trousers here for best results.
- An Italian hospital—Specialist in women and other diseases.
- Cemetery in Russia—Welcome to the cemetery where famous Russian artists are buried daily except Thursday.
- Airport in Denmark—We take your bags and send them in all directions.
- A Mexican hotel—The manager has personally passed all water served here.
It is no wonder that many companies favour the use of a Translation company, especially when technical translation is required, for example in technical industries.
- Sometimes, it might be difficult to find the equivalent word in a different language, not to mention those old sayings or proverbs. According to research, the following words have been selected as the top 10 most untranslatable words:
- Ilunga-- Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo, it means a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time; to tolerate it a second time; but never a third time.
- shlimaz—Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person
- radioukacz—Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistancemovements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain
- naa—Japanese word only used in the Kansai area of Japan, to emphasise statements or agree with someone
- altahmam—Arabic for a kind of deep sadness
- gezellig—Dutch for cosy
- saudade—Portuguese for a certain type of longing
- selathirupavar—Tamil for a certain type of truancy
- pochemuchka—Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions
- klloshar –Albanian for loser
In addition, the most untranslatable English word is believed to be ‘plenipotentiary\'. Other words such as ‘googly\', ‘spam\' and ‘gobbledygook\' had also been chosen.
- Some certain items, animals or concepts, in some languages, can only be expressed with one term, in other languages, however, you may find many different replacements. For example, sheep sometimes are also: ram, ewe or lamb; and deer can also be called: stag, doe and fawn. On the other hand, one word could also have more than one meaning, now who can translate the following sentence into a different language?
- 4. Expressions-- old sayings or proverbs are very important parts of a culture and the language. It is almost impossible to find an exact equivalent in a different language, and could be very difficult to translate. However, some more comment expressions which are frequently used by the native speakers can also be easily misunderstood by someone who is trying to learn it. For example, there was a story about a foreign student in the US. This girl was sitting by the window studying and she heard someone shout at her: 'Look out!', so she stood up and looked outside the window when a tennis ball just barely missed her head. Her friend commented, 'that was dangerous, I did warn you to look out. She answered, yes and that\'s what I did'. True or not, from this story we can easily see that sometimes, the words do not always mean they you think they do.
About the Author
Hello I was born and raised in the UK, my parents are both native British, I have studied the art of translation for many years and am fluent in the Chinese dialects of Cantonese and Mandarin, also the written in a romanized system chinese of Pinyin.
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