Meaning of translation in English

translation

/trænzˈleɪ.ʃən/ /trænsˈleɪ.ʃən/ us

/trænsˈleɪ.ʃən/ /trænzˈleɪ.ʃən/

something that is translated, or the process of translating something, from one language to another:

Students will do one Spanish translation a week.

literal translation of A literal translation of "euthanasia" would be "good death".

lose something in translation The English version is boring - maybe it has lost something in translation (= is not as good as the original).

in translation

changed into someone's own language, not in the original language:

She reads Proust in translation.

More examplesFewer examples

I have tried to keep my translation as faithful as possible to the original book.
The novel's complex, imaginative style does not lend itself to translation.
Her translation is too literal, resulting in heavy, unnatural prose.
It's only a loose translation of the poem.
The translation of the instructions was so poor they were just nonsense.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Using other languages

See more results »

(Definition of translation from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

translation | Business English

translation

noun

/trænzˈleɪʃən/ us

Add to word list Add to word list

[ U ]

the activity or process of changing the words of one language into the words in another language that have the same meaning:

Online translation services are not always as accurate as they should be.

translation software

[ C ]

a piece of writing or speech in one language that has been changed into another language:

translation from sth Delegates can listen to the translation from the Arabic through headsets.

[ U ] FINANCE, ACCOUNTING

the activity of giving the value of an amount in one currency in a different currency:

translation into sth Assets and liabilities denominated in non-US currencies are recorded in the financial statements after translation into US dollars.

[ S or U ]

the activity or process of changing something into a different form:

translation of sth (into sth) He said he will focus resources to speed the translation of research into practice.

(Definition of translation from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of translation

translation

This model represents the process involved in the translation of words in context using lexical information.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

We found that translation times were significantly slower for words learned in semantic sets versus in random order.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The semantics of the language is based on a translation, and it exploits abstract data types rather than polymorphic types and recursion.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Responsibility for its content, including the translations, remains my own.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

There is work here in translation, language management, learning and teaching foreign languages.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Since the feast for the translation is not added as well, it is assumed that the addition took place between 1297 and 1306.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

One hundred took part in the similarity-rating task, another 100 participated in the translation-elicitation task, and the remaining 50 took part in the imageability-rating task.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Otherwise, it would be a straightforward loan translation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This approach is better than straightforward translation of adjectives into other languages, as semantic meanings can often differ widely in other countries.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This mixing of source material from two languages suggests that loan translation and, by extension, all structural borrowing should receive theoretical treatment together with codeswitching.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

However, the application of a primitive dictionary is not always sufficient; auxiliary data must often be considered to make a competent translation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In short, the target's translation ("dog") interferes with the retrieval of the target's name in the response language ("perro").

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Vertical translations are enough for all applications, as the previous results have indicated.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Then, we prove that the translation is correct with respect to typing and reduction.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

More interesting are the translations of function types and region abstraction types.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of translation

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.