Literal translation

Literal translation is the rendering of text from one language to another "word-for-word" (Latin: verbum pro verbo), rather than conveying the sense of the original. Literal translations thus commonly mis-translate idioms.

A literal English translation of the German word "Kindergarten" would be "garden of children," but in English the expression refers to the school year between pre-school and first grade.

If one translates literally the Italian sentence, "So che questa non va bene" ("I know that this is not good"), one gets "Know-I that this not go-it well," a mélange of English words and Italian grammar.

Early machine translations were notorious for this type of translation, and machine translation still has a long way to go.

Often, first-generation immigrants create something of a literal translation in how they speak their parents' native language. This results in a mix of the two languages in something of a pidgin. Many such mixes have specific names, e.g. Spanglish or Germish. For example, American children of German immigrants are heard using "rockingstool" for "rocking chair" instead of the correct German "Schaukelstuhl."

Literal translation of idioms is a source of numerous translators' jokes and apocrypha. The following famous example has often been told both in the context of newbie translators and that of machine translation: when the sentence "The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak" was translated into Russian and then back to English, the result was "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten." This is generally believed to be simply an amusing story, and not actually a factual reference to an actual machine translation error [1].

Similarly, a literal translation of the sentence, "What’s up?" (from English to French and back to English) resulted in "Towards the top of that which is?"

Literal translation can also denote a translation that represents the precise meaning of the original text but does not attempt to convey its style, beauty, or poetry. Charles Singleton's translation of The Divine Comedy (1975) is regarded as a literal translation.

Literal translations are sometimes prepared for a writer who is translating a work written in a language he does not know. For example, Robert Pinsky is reported to have used a literal translation in preparing his translation of Dante's Inferno (1994), as he does not know Italian. Similarly, Richard Pevear works from literal translations provided by his wife, Larissa Volokhonsky, in their translations of several Russian novels.