Many people wonder how translators manage to keep the original meaning in their translations while switching languages because translation is not just about replacing words, it's also about conveying a message.

How do they do it? It’s all about using a bunch of cool techniques

Sometimes, they use literal translation, which is basically translating word-for-word when the languages are pretty similar. It’s like a direct swap.

Other times, they might employ transposition — switching up grammatical categories to make things fit. For example, turning “teaching” into “education.”

With modulation, the perspective gets tweaked a bit to make things sound more natural. Instead of saying “He is a heavy smoker,” they might go with “He smokes a lot.”

When it comes to idioms and cultural stuff, equivalence is key—finding an expression in the new language that has the same impact. So, “It’s raining cats and dogs” becomes “It’s raining heavily.”

For cultural concepts that don’t have a direct match, adaptation is used. For instance, in the U.S., Thanksgiving is a significant holiday, but if a text about it is being translated for a brazilian audience it would be necessary to adapt it to “Festa de Ação de Graças,” which is a term Brazilians can recognize and understand, even though the holiday itself is not widely celebrated in Brazil. This adaptation helps convey the meaning and cultural context of the original concept

Sometimes, they’ll just borrow terms straight from the original language when there’s no perfect fit. So “software” stays as “software.”

Calque is like borrowing but with a twist—translating literally. So “skyscraper” becomes “high-rise building.”

To clear things up, explicitation adds extra info to explain tricky concepts.

They might also reduce by cutting out extra details that might confuse, and sometimes **expand** by adding more info to make everything clearer.

These techniques help keep translations true to the original while making them sound great in the new language. It’s a matter of finding the right balance!