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Word-for-word or free translation?

User avatar
MsFixer
Japan

Word-for-word or free translation?

Post by MsFixer »

There was a heated debate on a sentence discussion for the Duolingo Indonesian from English course: "Should Duolingo give us word-for-word translations or free translations?"

I recently opened the same poll on Reddit, asking which approach would better work for Clozemaster, another language learning app using the so-called "cloze-deletion test" method. Four options are available.

  1. Always prefer free translations
  2. Mostly prefer free translations
  3. Mostly prefer modest word-for-word translations
  4. Always prefer extreme word-for-word translations

Both of the approaches have pros and cons. But more Duolingo Indonesian course takers at the time supported word-for-word than free translations. Natural free translations make us more comfortable in reading long passages in English while they also make us confused with hundreds of possible answers. In order to manage the complexity and to take into account that the target users of Duolingo are absolute beginners, the majority of course takers prefer word-for-word translations.

To my surprise, the result (still ongoing, though) is more polarized on Reddit than on the Duolingo SD. So far, more users on Reddit support free translations. Please join the poll after reading the following example cases, and/or give your thought on this matter.


Case 1: idiom and word order (JP-EN)

  • JP: 昨日、トムは風邪を{{引き}}ました。

  • EN (free translation): "Tom caught a cold yesterday."

  • EN (modest W4W): "Yesterday, Tom caught a cold."

  • EN (extreme W4W): "Yesterday, Tom pulled an evil wind."

The {{cloze-word}} is a verb, meaning "to pull". But "pulled an evil wind" is not helpful for Japanese learners to answer it. I still wonder, however, which is better: putting "yesterday" at the end or beginning.

Case 2: passive form (ID-EN)

  • ID: "Silakan {{dinikmati}} kuenya."

  • EN (free translation): "Please help yourself to the cake. "(= Tatoeba version)

  • EN (modest W4W): "Please enjoy the cake if you like."

  • EN (extreme W4W): "Please be enjoyed with the cake."

The {{cloze-word}} is written in a passive form in Indonesian. Native speakers intentionally choose a passive form when they are offering something politely. An active verb in an imperative sentence sounds too direct and even insistent even if "please" ("silakan") is inserted.

The extreme version is the easiest one to fill in the cloze-word. But no English speaker says "please be enjoyed" with a passive verb.
The modest version uses the active form ("enjoy"), but adding "if you like" phrase may give a hint to Indonesian learners.
The free translation sourced from Tatoeba is very hard to guess the cloze-word. {{Dinikmati}} merely means "to be enjoyed".

MsFixer with Pulau Bahasa | Native: 🇯🇵 | Learning: 🇮🇩 (B1)

John238922
Australia

Re: Word-for-word or free translation?

Post by John238922 »

I have no problem with free translations where these fit the common usage of native speakers, but I have a very strong view that Duolingo should also provide literal, word for word translations where this is grammatically correct and idiomatically accurate.

Duolingo should have an internal process to do this systematically for every sentence. They don't, which is just corporate laziness and cheeseparing.

For the above,

Case 1

Pulled an evil wind is evidently a Japanese idiom for caught a cold and should not be translated literally

Case 2

Seems to have some more options.

Google gives me

Sitakan take it

Sitakan dinikmati please enjoy, so this is a particular idiom, and

Kenya cake

So please enjoy the cake.

I don't see where you get 'if you like' from.

Nor do I see where 'help yourself' comes from unless this is also an idiom that Dr Google is not giving us.

Would 'please have some cake' be good?

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John Little
Brazil

Re: Word-for-word or free translation?

Post by John Little »

I'm with you "other John"! The other thing that annoys me is when they ask a single word translation and you know that the word they give is not in the same tense as the word in the list of possible translations.

Eg: Chovendo in português means "raining" - not "rain". But there are worse examples than that. Some completely different words that are really only rough translations.

So I would like to see both word for word AND free translations side by side

John661162

User avatar
pj1506
France

Re: Word-for-word or free translation?

Post by pj1506 »

John238922 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:56 am

Sitakan take it
Sitakan dinikmati please enjoy.

I think it should be "silakan".

Arabic + Tagalog

John238922
Australia

Re: Word-for-word or free translation?

Post by John238922 »

[mention]pj1506[/mention] thanks.

So

Silakan please

Dinikmati enjoyed
[Nikmati enjoy]

Kuenya cake

So the literal translation doesn't directly connote taking or helping yourself, but how can you enjoy the cake if you don't take it?

User avatar
Corinnebelle

Re: Word-for-word or free translation?

Post by Corinnebelle »

I think 3 is my pick. Word for word is the best but I think a happy medium where we get the thought across with as close as possible to word for word is best. You can open a poll here as well if you wish.

Interestingly free translation is winning on reddit.

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