When songs are translated from English into something like Mandarin – is it a word for word translation? How to rhymes work in translation?
Hearing the Mandarin version of “Yellow” while high made me think too hard about this.
In: Culture
Translation MA student here, will do my best to explain.
I believe the translation is meaning-based. Informal language such as slang terms need to be adjusted so that the audience (Mandarin Chinese speakers) can understand it without it being unintentionally offensive.
This is taken into account when translating a song. Translators must keep the meaning of a song as much as they can whilst making the translation as coherent as the original text, which can involve tailoring it to the target audience. REM’s “It’s the End Of The World As We Know It” makes references to American culture, but the Italian version (“A che ora e’ la fine del mondo?”) makes references to Italian culture, since Italians may not quite grasp the references in the same way Americans do.
I really hope that this helps and you understood it. 🙂
Usually the overall meaning will be kept but the words will change so they rhyme. As in 99 red balloons.
Most will do a combination of both. Depending on the source language and the language it’s being translated in to, there may not be an exact translation available. Sentence structure and word conjugation can also vary.
With translation you make different tradeoffs based on the situation. You always try to translate the meaning, but sometimes you have other things you have to consider as well that conflict with trying to retell the meaning. Like, with books you can retell the story quite freely in another language. With movie subtitles, you have to keep subtitles short enough to fit screen and play at proper time. With dubs, you have to consider stress of sentences and timings and that sorta stuff so it all falls in place.
And with songs, you have to make it fit the song, rhythm and all. So you try to translate it, but very likely you end up having to make huge changes to it simply because your translated text has to fit so many precise form requirements. Most translated songs I’ve seen change the meaning in major ways, sometimes only keeping the theme, sometimes not even that.
I’m no expert, but I don’t think there are forms of text which have more crucial considerations for translation totally unrelated to the meaning of that translation, than song lyrics. Stress, timing, form, length, sound… it’s all there. Poetry and song lyrics, who would win.
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