Translation Gap
Yinglin Zeng
Can the gap between two languages be bridged? Translation Gap aims to find the answer. As a student who speaks Chinese and English, I found that there is inaccuracy when I use Google Translate. This book is based on thirty of the most used internet slang words in China. When they are translated into English by Google, their authentic meanings are misinterpreted. Translation Gap visualizes the Gap in a straightforward way, by comparing the correct definitions and the Google translated versions of the slang words.
Language is the foundation of culture. It’s almost impossible for the machine to fully understand the culture behind the language, at least for now. Google Translate is unable to do a good job in translating the deeper meaning of the text into another language because it just literally converts the targeted language without “understanding” the context and knowledge of cultural differences. It’s just doing a superficial job of pattern-matching words or phrases that have already been translated by humans in the database. Translation Gap proves that superficiality.