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Comment by coder543 | Hacker News Reader

Beyond the simplest cases, all translations have “subjective copy editing”. If two languages were 1:1 with each other, they would be the same language. For an extreme example of how not 1:1 translation can be, go read up on Toki Pona, but this is a fundamental property of translation.

Just think about all the idioms that we use in English that would be totally baffling if translated literally.

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I know not everything can be translated 1:1. But if in the cases it can, I don't think removing things "that could be considered redundant" is the right approach if you want to have correct translations.

But it actually can be correct to remove redundancy. In Spanish, a double negative is the correct thing to do in many cases, but it would translate poorly to English, even though it can be literally translated as such.

These decisions naturally crop up all over the place during translation. It feels pointless to make blanket statements like you did about the removal of “watered down”. Without knowing that specific language intimately, I can’t say that it is wrong, and this is a very simple case.

Good quality translation will always be somewhat subjective.

To a first approximation, nothing can be translated 1:1.

It's a genuinely hard problem. Even the idea of "correct translation" is slippery.

Yeh! A lot of words have dozens of meanings; many carry cultural meanings and shades, which can further depend on context. Some can be positive or pejorative depending on pronunciation or emphasis... etc. it's endless!

Do you speak/understand more than one language? Honestly wondering, because if you do, I don't think this would be something you would think to be possible.

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