Understanding the Difference Between Translation and Transliteration
What is the first thing you do when you see a piece of content in a foreign language? You use the Google Translator online, or the Google Translate extension does the job for you, right? This process is commonly known as translation. But what if we told you that what you really get is transliteration or transcription and not a true translation? Aren’t you confused already?
Yes, there’s quite a lot of difference between translation and transliteration even if they seem like the right way to communicate something in a more known way. If you too get confused between these two terms, don’t be embarrassed; a lot of people find this issue confusing. Our content writing agency is here to clarify this common doubt.
Translation |
Transliteration |
|
| Definition | It is the process of converting words or sentences into another language. A simple word by word translation takes text from one language and changes it into a word with identical meaning in the other language. | It is the process of writing a word or sentence in the script or characters that people can easily understand. Transliteration involves changing the script used to write words in one language to the script of another |
| Change of Meaning | The meaning of the translated version is almost similar to the original text. | The meaning of the translated version may or may not remain the same as the original version. |
| Change of Characters | The characters are completely changed during this process. For instance, the entire script with Chinese or Devnagri characters changes to the Roman alphabets. | The letters or characters are taken from a word, and they are changed to the equivalent characters in another language. For instance, α → a, д → d, χ → ch, ն → n or æ → ae. |
| Motive | To be effective, translation takes the meaning behind the text and put it into the target language so that the intent of the message remains intact. | When there is a word you don’t want to be changed, interpreted, or explained, but only put into the characters of another language, transliteration is used. |
| Example | English translation for सिन्दूर → vermillion.OR
Bonjour → Hello. |
English transliteration for सिन्दूर → sindoor.OR
Александру Казаку → Aleksandru Kazaku. |
Both translation and transliteration are part of effective content writing. Based on what you wish to communicate, you’ll have to use either of these in your piece. Hence, understanding the common-points and distinctions between the two is essential. There will be days when you’ll have to translate a piece to the language that you wish to communicate in. And on a few other days, you’ll have to use words that are more understandable by your audience. If you think all this is too much of a task, fret not. A content writing agency in Mumbai is always there to help you out.
Now that you know, you can thank us later!
Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/animation-fun-illustration-26mkhSjeGV7LRPJ0Q
Spacebar – a content writing agency is known for saving the world from bad content. Apart from providing complete content creation and designing services, our pros excel in providing the translating services too. So if you wish to simplify a language, mostly foreign or regional, or need a word-to-word conversion of words and sentences, you know whom to reach out to. It’s simple, call us at +91-22-4005 6394.