When words get in the way

Our primary means of communication is with words – written or spoken. When we’re trying to speak to someone who doesn’t speak the same language it’s much trickier, and even when a trained interpreter is on the job, there are occasions when they need to do quite a bit of quick thinking to get to the correct meaning.

Sometimes, the very existence of the words in the English lexicon gets in the way – the aptly-named “false friends” of other (mainly European) languages which look the same but don’t have the same meaning. At other times either there is no equivalent of the word in the other language or the concept is completely different. Check out these examples:

• A doctor tells her patient “This condition is not curable, but it is treatable”. A Russian interpreter reports difficulty in translating this effectively. There’s an exact match for curable, but not one for treatable. And if the doctor tells the patient they have angina? The same word exists in Russian, but means “sore throat”.

• An Arabic interpreter struggles with translating words describing personal relationships such as “de facto” and “partner”. The meanings we ascribe to these words don’t exist in her language and she needs to resort to paraphrasing.

• A patient at a medical centre gets a message from the nurse: your test results are positive. Yippee! Or perhaps not – in many cases this means a disease has been positively confirmed. Interpreter (and medical staff): beware.

• “That’s a no-brainer” – a manager’s response to an excellent suggestion by a staff member. Result: a very despondent staff member who thought the manager was saying she hadn’t used her brain at all, and the idea was rubbish. Watch out when using slang!

On top of these there are the family relationships that in many languages need far more specific information to come up with the right title. For example in Thai, the word for “aunty” will be different depending on whether it’s the sister of the mother or the father, and whether that sister is older or younger. The same applies in Arabic and Japanese. However, in Samoan, there is no word for “aunty” at all, and the English version has been adopted for some situations.

In the words of David Suchet, the actor who played Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, when describing his screen character: “I listen to what you say, but I hear what you mean.” This is the interpreter’s job too – understanding the words certainly but more importantly, getting to the meaning. So, next time you’re using an interpreter, think about the complexities that they’re dealing with every time they work. Give them a big vote of thanks.