This is a terrible idea, as it would make mincemeat of idioms and synonyms, and would likely produce incomprehensible results for most texts longer than two or three words. Overall though, there are far more written references to " literally translated" and similar variations.Īs you and others have noted, a word-by-word translation, if taken literally, would entail taking each word of the source text and translating it individually into the target language.
Of those two, the second is about ten times more common, but I see no reason to suppose there could ever be a difference in meaning. It's perfectly possible to translate "word by word" or "word for word". There are no dictionary definitions for word by word, because it's not an idiom as such - it's just one possible form of the X by X construction (a succession of consecctive X's).įoot by foot, and house by house, the enemy were driven in towards the Plaza.ĭay by day he worked on, and day by day the postman delivered to him rejected manuscripts.īook by book, he decimates the Bible for factual errors and internal contradictions. we're much more likely to describe the "exact" translation as literal, not word-for-word. Meaning: to call a spade a spade, to be honest and frank, to tell it like it is In a translation context, such as this page explaining the French expression. From his first minor radio appearance to the last letter he wrote before his death. What you'll read are Elvis's words and only Elvis's words. It's about accurately copied/reported words, as in the book title. The standard idiom word for word doesn't particularly relate to "translation" contexts at all. If yes, is there any difference between "word-by-word translation" and "word-for-word translation"? If yes again, what is it specifically?.As neither Oxford nor Merriam-Webster have any entries for word-by-word in their dictionaries: is word-by-word actually valid?.(Actually, this is not a word-for-word translation but rather a sense-for-sense translation.) Here are better translations for the examples above: order of words) and also considering if the statement still makes sense in the other language. (I guess only Germans understand this.)Ī "word-for-word translation", however, would be an attempt to keep the word-choice as close as possible but following the rules of the target language (e.g. Word-by-word translation: I think I spider. Word-by-word translation: Es ist kritisch zu wissen. Word-by-word translation: Wort bei Wort (That's a terrible translation!) However, if this would be true a "word-by-word translation" would be a translation where I keep, for instance, the order of the words, disregarding if it makes sense in the target language. I assume that this was written by a German but I don't know it. What you mean is "word-by-word" (wortwörtlich) to me. When I translate something "literally," (wörtlich) it still follows the main rules of the language I'm translating into.
In another forum I found the following statement:
And assuming that there may be a lot of usages from non-natives among the Google hits, this could be an indicator for word-by-word being even utterly wrong.
WORD VS WORD INSURANCE FAX LOSS FREE
The definitions given by The Free Dictionary are, obviously, identical to each other.Īccording to usages and dictionaries word-by-word is, at least, less popular. Only the last dictionary contains a definition for word-by-word, too: The Free Dictionary: one word at a time, without regard for the sense of the whole Merriam-Webster: being in or following the exact words, verbatim Oxford: In exactly the same or, when translated, exactly equivalent words Word-by-word has 26 usages, none of them are "word-by-word translation" (but some with "transcription"). According to COCA word-for-word has 60 usages, 3 of them are "word-for-word translation".
0 kommentar(er)
