DO I REALLY NEED TO HIRE A TRANSLATOR? MY EMPLOYEE TOOK LANGUAGE CLASSES IN SCHOOL AND IS PROFICIENT.
If your friend or employee tells you he can translate that text from or into English for you because he took (foreign) language classes in school and is proficient, he has a bird. That will most likely go in the pants. Understand station? Well, that’s what happens when someone translates from or into a language that (s)he (more or less) masters as a foreign language. (The first three sentences, by the way, are a literal translation from German, in which they make perfect sense. A better translation would be, “If your friend or employee tells you (…) he’s bananas. That will most likely go awry. You don’t get it?” Which, by the same token, would make no sense to a German if translated literally into German.)
Language is much more than words. Language is an expression of culture. It comes not only with its unique words, sounds, grammar, and spelling. It also holds the typical beliefs, values, and experiences of a particular culture as they have developed from the culture’s unique circumstances—history, geography, climate, and people.
Therefore, people from another culture will not only use a different word to describe an object or use a different syntax to arrange words in a sentence. They will also use a (sometimes vastly) different approach when recounting a story, describing a situation, giving instructions, or advertising a product.
In addition, due to a culture’s unique circumstances, certain words or expressions may have a different connotation or be taboo. Consequently, even when the same language is spoken in different countries it will vary—such as English spoken in the UK, the U.S., Canada, Australia, or the Caribbean; Spanish spoken in Spain or in the different Latin American countries; or German spoken in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland.
A text translated by someone who is not deeply familiar with both cultures—that of the source and the target language—will be correct and understandable at best. Generating a text that sounds authentic to a native speaker requires profound knowledge of the respective culture(s).
A well-written text is one that reflects the culture behind the language it is written in.