Guide Note
This page contains some of the best resources on the internet to get a Free Translation between a variety of languages.
The act of translation involves taking a text written in one language and producing the equivalent text in another language. Translation is an imperfect art as there is no word-to-word correspondence between two languages. A mechanical word-to-word translation cannot take into account grammatical rules, idioms, context or the conventions of writing systems. While you can receive a basic translation of a text by using an online translation service, keep in mind that the result won't necessarily provide every nuance of the original text's meaning.
Fast Facts
- Etymology: From the Latin "translatio," meaning "to carry across"
- Translation is evident from as early as the second millennium BCE
- Epic of Gilgamesh among oldest known translated literary works
Etymology
The world "translation" is derived from the Latin "translatio" meaning "to carry across." The Greek word for "translation," "metaphrasis," has provided English with the terms "metaphrase," meaning word-for-word, and "paraphrase," meaning "a saying in other words." The distinction, taken from the Greek, allows translators to differentiate between metaphrase, the formal equivalent of a text, and paraphrase, the dynamic equivalent of a text.