Playing with ice

Some say translation is like playing with ice. The translator is given an ice cube. Melting. No longer a perfect cube. The translator must add back some water to rebuild it. No matter how masterly the linguist is, the rebuilt ice cube might look the same but it’s not the original ice cube anymore. There are certain elements, such as connotations and cultural concepts, that are not translatable across different languages. Renowned detective author Agatha Christie’s A.B.C. Murders (spoiler alert) would make no sense to Chinese readers if the translator only included the sound of the name of characters and locations in the Chinese copy, which is a usual practice. The translator must translate out of the box and provide additional information to show the Chinese readers the source text’s alphabetical ingredients so they can get a full taste of the story. Although the additional information might disrupt the structure and flow, it is crucial to the readers of the target text.