Cross-translations

I am currently trying to translate a sentence from English to Japanese (preferably Kanji so it can be vertical and more traditional) and am using a combination of multiple translaters. Why is it that whenever you translate a sentence from one language to another and then translate it back to check it, the cross-translation never equals the original sentence?! I understand that it is contextual so I am struggling to translate individual words and am not quite set on the sentence I want to translate yet so this is definitely a struggle.

mjh99 said:

Why is it that whenever you translate a sentence from one language to another and then translate it back to check it, the cross-translation never equals the original sentence?

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This is because language is contextual, and sometimes when going from Language A to Language B, some context may be lost in order to get a technically accurate translation. Then, when you use that accurate-but-context-free text that you got for Language B, and try to translate it to Language C or even back to Language A, the translation program doesn't necessarily remember or recognize the context from which it came, so you end up with a different translation.

If you like, you can post your text here and we can help out.

By the way, was my response to your other thread helpful?

Majestic said:

This is because language is contextual, and sometimes when going from Language A to Language B, some context may be lost in order to get a technically accurate translation. Then, when you use that accurate-but-context-free text that you got for Language B, and try to translate it to Language C or even back to Language A, the translation program doesn't necessarily remember or recognize the context from which it came, so you end up with a different translation.

If you like, you can post your text here and we can help out.

By the way, was my response to your other thread helpful?

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Hi!

Yes, your other reply was super helpful and I'm actually using the website you recommended to transfer the symbols vertically!

People say English is so hard because it has words like They're, There and Their but when a languages entire structure depends on context, it certainly makes it hard for understanding haha!!

The sentence (to some degree) that im trying to translate is "the unchangeable should be impactless" or something to that tone. Originally it was "do not be changed by that you cannot change" but I wanted some bigger words in there to sound smarter than I am haha!

mjh99 said:

The sentence (to some degree) that im trying to translate is "the unchangeable should be impactless" or something to that tone. Originally it was "do not be changed by that you cannot change" but I wanted some bigger words in there to sound smarter than I am haha!

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That is hard to interpret in English so naturally any translations may be off the mark too.

In case you want an AI's opinion that you didn't ask for:
The phrase "the unchangeable should be impactless" is not a common expression, but it seems to imply that things that cannot be changed should not have any effect on us. It could be interpreted as a variation of the Serenity Prayer, which asks for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change1. However, this phrase is problematic because it suggests that we should be indifferent or detached from the unchangeable aspects of reality, which is not realistic or healthy. As one article points out, acceptance does not mean getting over something or minimizing its significance1. It means acknowledging what is, without resisting or denying it1. The unchangeable things in life can still have an impact on us, emotionally, psychologically, or physically, and we need to cope with them in constructive ways. Therefore, a better phrase might be "the unchangeable should be accepted" or "the unchangeable should be faced with courage".

Ah - yes a word like "they" is a good example of a word that has a counterpart in Japanese, but that counterpart is often omitted in normal speech because its understood, so adding it to the sentence might impart an unintended nuance. So when you re-translate back into English that unintended nuance might get amplified, resulting in a weird feedback loop.

The second part of your post is tough because the translation needs to sound like an aphorism or axiom, which requires a certain facility with the language. Like "Time is Money", I think most westerners who speak a bit of Japanese would translate into 時間はお金です, which literally is "time is money". A perfect one-for-one translation. And yet, its slightly wrong because it doesn't have any weight. The proper translation (which I just had to check on google to remind myself) is 時は金なり (also "time is money", but using a more classical construction). But students of Japanese aren't taught the なり ending because it isn't used in daily conversation. And 時間 is the word that most people use for "time" (depending on the context), so it probably never occurs to westerners to use the single kanji 時 to mean "time" in the case of time is money. Also, 時間はお金です isn't drastically wrong, its just not elegant or powerful or "axiom-like".

Anyway, I think you may want to wait for Toritoribe-san, our native speaker, to chime in on your target text. Your original idea of "do not be changed by that which you cannot change" probably works better in Japanese than "unchangeable should be impactless", which sounds like we should be impervious to things like weather or fortune or illness. But maybe something like 不可変に決して屈してはならず. As you can see it requires a lot of hiragana. You might be able to render it into classical Japanese, which makes use of Chinese characters for some grammar particles, but that is an even more complicated level of translation.

I would use 変えられないものに変えられるな for "do not be changed by that which you cannot change".