Poll: Which do you find the trickiest to translate? Autor de la hebra: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Which do you find the trickiest to translate?".
View the poll results »
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I suppose the question is aimed more at literary translators, which I am not. However, for some time I translated newspaper articles and perhaps I encountered figures of speech there (translating some articles from ‘The Economist’ were particularly tricky). AFAIK the difficulty of translating them depends on the context and the source language. Latin languages often have equivalents, which are harder to find in Anglo-Germanic languages. It all comes down to research, creativity and... time!
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The process of conveying a meaning is always a challenge and I have to say that so far I always managed to deliver effective equivalents.
Metaphors require time sometimes, but it's always very stimulating.
| | | | Lingua 5B 
Bosnia y Herzegovina
Local time: 17:25
inglés al francés
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Probably jokes. Humor doesn’t translate, aforisms are in that category I guess, but still not the same format as jokes.
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I just remembered the trickiest translation I ever did. It was a few years ago when I was working as a sworn translator in Brussels. I received the divorce papers from a Belgian man married to a Portuguese woman. She had fled to her home in northern Portugal and I had to translate the correspondence between the two, which was full of swear words (I'm from a time when saying the equivalent in Portuguese of ‘what a drag’ (que chatice!) was a bad word). I learned quite a few in both Portuguese ... See more I just remembered the trickiest translation I ever did. It was a few years ago when I was working as a sworn translator in Brussels. I received the divorce papers from a Belgian man married to a Portuguese woman. She had fled to her home in northern Portugal and I had to translate the correspondence between the two, which was full of swear words (I'm from a time when saying the equivalent in Portuguese of ‘what a drag’ (que chatice!) was a bad word). I learned quite a few in both Portuguese and French... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italia
Local time: 17:25
inglés al alemán
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| lists of words without context | Jul 15, 2025 |
Just happened these days again.
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
I just remembered the trickiest translation I ever did. It was a few years ago when I was working as a sworn translator in Brussels. I received the divorce papers from a Belgian man married to a Portuguese woman. She had fled to her home in northern Portugal and I had to translate the correspondence between the two, which was full of swear words (I'm from a time when saying the equivalent in Portuguese of ‘what a drag’ (que chatice!) was a bad word). I learned quite a few in both Portuguese and French...
This is actually a good one!
I think swearwords don't get discussed enough, just from a linguistic pov.
Some languages, like Italian for example, have very layered curses
Some words are very disrespectful and things can really go downhill if you don't do some research.
| | | | | About "bad words" in Spanish | Jul 15, 2025 |
Alessandra Turconi wrote:
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
I just remembered the trickiest translation I ever did. It was a few years ago when I was working as a sworn translator in Brussels. I received the divorce papers from a Belgian man married to a Portuguese woman. She had fled to her home in northern Portugal and I had to translate the correspondence between the two, which was full of swear words (I'm from a time when saying the equivalent in Portuguese of ‘what a drag’ (que chatice!) was a bad word). I learned quite a few in both Portuguese and French...
This is actually a good one!
I think swearwords don't get discussed enough, just from a linguistic pov.
Some languages, like Italian for example, have very layered curses
Some words are very disrespectful and things can really go downhill if you don't do some research.
In 2004, the 3rd Spanish Language Congress was held in Rosario [https://congresosdelalengua.es/rosario/], the city where Roberto Fontanarrosa was born, so he was invited.
This is his speech (15 minutes in Spanish) about Spanish "bad words" from a linguistic POV related to pronunciation and sound. It's as laughable as it is memorable > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Dkc7M6zEo
I miss his humor so much!
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Reed James
Chile
Local time: 12:25
español al inglés
| That's aPHorisms | Jul 15, 2025 |
It's so important to double-check spelling. There are numerous tools available these days that can help.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia y Herzegovina
Local time: 17:25
inglés al francés
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Reed James wrote:
It's so important to double-check spelling. There are numerous tools available these days that can help.
Yes, you are right, that’s the main point of this poll. Do not address what had been asked, instead act as an editor nobody ever invited to edit.
It’s not only the tools, it’s the website optimization. This website is obviously not optimized for iPad as it never underlines misspelled words when I’m on iPad, only when I’m on my PC. Probably the same for phones, unless you are in the ProZ app.
| | | | Daryo
Local time: 16:25
serbio al inglés
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| You never know in advance | Jul 16, 2025 |
You could be ambushed at any time by some expression that no longer looks 'obvious/simple/easy' once you try to translate it and it starts twisting your brain in all kind of exotic knots.
The tricky ones I can remember right now have been most ordinary words given a very non-ordinary meaning in some specialised context. These would be ones to watch for ...
| | | | CasaPhil
España
Local time: 17:25
Miembro
inglés al francés
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| Certainly not! | Jul 16, 2025 |
Reed James wrote:
It's so important to double-check spelling. There are numerous tools available these days that can help.
A piece of advice to newcomers in the profession: if you want your translations to differentiate themselves from AI-generated text, don't correct formal mistakes. Ever.
Typos, spelling mistakes and grammar issues are among the things that AI is very bad at making, like engaging the reader into reading.
"aforisms" shows that a human being was involved in devising this poll, and s/he perhaps did it on purpose to silence rumours that polls are generated by AI on auto-pilot.
Philippe
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Philippe Etienne wrote:
Reed James wrote:
It's so important to double-check spelling. There are numerous tools available these days that can help.
A piece of advice to newcomers in the profession: if you want your translations to differentiate themselves from AI-generated text, don't correct formal mistakes. Ever.
Typos, spelling mistakes and grammar issues are among the things that AI is very bad at making, like engaging the reader into reading.
Philippe
Wait, did I get this "advice" right? Are you advising NOT to spellcheck or grammar check any translation?
Let me rephrase the question: is your "advice" NOT to check the spelling/grammar quality on purpose just to prove that the text was translated by a human? 
| | | | Aecio Gomes
Brasil
Local time: 12:25
inglés al portugués
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For me, the trickiest translations are the ones that involve uncommon limitations — like character count restrictions or preserving rhyme and meter in song lyrics. That’s why I usually take much longer when working on Brazilian Portuguese versions of songs compared to regular translations. Adapting meaning, tone, and musicality all at once is definitely a unique challenge!
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