Translation Error Analysis
Translation Error Analysis
Mistakes are what makes us human. Machines don’t make mistakes and when they do, they are mostly labelled as the human error. Although failing is a part of our lives, we are always taught to avoid mistakes. Ever since we develop a basic understanding of the world, we get told by everyone around us that we have to do things perfectly. When children get scolded for doing something incorrectly, they develop a fear of failure. This fear follows them into their school life where the whole system is based around awarding those who don’t make mistakes or only make a few of them.
Some teachers understand that children can’t learn if they do not make mistakes and they promote a healthy learning environment in their classrooms. But this is only something that children can enjoy, when we become adult, we get told that there is no room left for any lapse of judgement. People love throwing around insults every time someone make a small mistake questioning what they have studied in school. This trend reaches its peak when we enter our practical lives. A small mistake can cost people their jobs and they spend their whole lives in fear of making one wrong move.
But in truth, no one can ever stop making mistakes. Everyone remembers those instances when teachers wrote incorrect spellings on the board during class. Our brains can get overworked and therefore can’t always perform perfectly. When we are tired or distracted or just overloaded with work or information, we are bound to slip up. Sometimes we mean one thing but end up saying another thing altogether because our brain ends up relaying the wrong message to our tongue. These occurrences are very common and can never be stopped. However, that doesn’t mean we cannot manage the consequences of our mistakes.
How We Deal with Slipups:
Mistakes and blunders may be commonplace but they can be dangerous when they change the context of a press release or a promotional message. This is why errors cannot be tolerated in the world of business. If you think about it, mistakes can’t be tolerated anywhere whether it is the world of information technology or medical documents. An inaccuracy in legal documents can turn someone’s life upside down. Great care is taken everywhere to ensure that there are no mistakes that can alter the meaning of a document and make them harmful for the parties involved.
Proofreading is a very important job but sometimes the task requires more than just a proof reader. Some fields require experts to go through a document and analyze it for errors. If an author has written a fictional book then they can ask a proofreader to check it for errors, but when a legal document has to be checked for errors, only an expert in legal language can understand it enough to spot the mistakes. This makes people think that they don’t need an expert for proofreading their documents and anyone making those documents can also read it after finishing to make sure it is perfect. That may be alright too but sometimes it can be too time consuming, not to mention burdensome on the person writing documents.
Translation Errors:
Errors also occur in the world of translation. But they are a bit different from mistakes in documents. They are all related to translations and can therefore be only analyzed by those who know both languages equally well. The translation of a simple sentence can be tricky for someone who has no past experience with translating. But even the translators with years of experience can sometimes make mistakes. However, the process of translation error analysis can make sure their errors do not stay in the document.
In order to understand what mistakes in interpretation can be, it is essential to know translation error definition:
Any mistake in the translated document, whether it is grammatical or spelling error, that changes the meaning of the original text is considered a translation error. If the translator chooses a wrong word to translate a specific word and changes its meaning then that would also be considered an error. If there are grammatical mistakes in the document that do not affect its meaning then they won’t be considered a translation error.
Analysis of Translations:
In order to differentiate between the mistake that will change the meaning of the document and those that won’t the process of translation error analysis is carried out. During the analysis, the errors that change the meaning of the original document are eliminated and, if needed, replaced with the better alternatives. If a word isn’t interpreting the original document correctly then it will be replaced with a better word. The analysis also helps you ignore the mistakes that are not affecting the meaning and can be left inside the document without any problem.
Often times simple translations are not analyzed because they are already checked by the interpreters and don’t have any errors. But when the documents being handled are complicated and long, or involve sensitive information, then analysis becomes necessary. In cases of legal matters and research studies, errors can change the situation completely and therefore need to be corrected before it is too late. All the reliable language service providers like Universal Translation Services offer translation error analysis to help their clients get rid of errors in their documents that can prove to be damaging.
