What you lose over translations

Watching videos with subtitles can be really convenient. You don’t have to learn an entire language to enjoy a piece of work, especially when it’s in a foreign language. But have you ever thought about how people speaking the language understand different things? Would it be different from your experience, or would it be the same?

From a TV show called “Severance”

Recently, I watched a TV show about a place where workers surgically divide their memories between their work and personal lives. The show suggested me lots of philosophical questions, and it also went really interesting in later parts of the show. (But I won’t get into details. Because I don’t want to spoil it.) Someday later, I re-watched some parts of the show with Korean subtitles. Interestingly, the show felt completely different. Even the informal conversations were translated to be formal. Truly interesting thing to realize, isn’t it?

I know something similar!

I’ve seen many examples of how different languages call different things in different ways. For example, TV Series are usually referred to as 드라마(Drama) in Korean. This is why “K-Drama” is called K-Drama. Then what should I call American TV series in Korean? It’s usually called 미드^(mi-deu) (shortened form of 미국 드라마^{(miguk deurama)}, meaning American Drama in direct translation). Even aloe is called 알로에^(allo-eh) in Korean.

What is “language” anyway?

I tired to figure out with why this happens. And there’s something I can tell based on my personal experience. Many people might’ve heard of an idea that language is a promise. It suggests that the names of objects we call were devised to have better communication. Otherwise there would be an absolute chaos, not knowing which name to use.

However, just like English and Korean, such promises can be different in different cultures and regions. That’s why we need translations in the first place! I believe translation is a process of decoding one format into another format. So that people kind of understand the other side.

Loss over translation

But there are also cons. Every translator is different, meaning the output can be different depending on who the translator is. You could also lose the nuance that only exists in the source language. You might see completely different things by reading the same work in two different languages. I think it’s usually good to be aware of this!