Just the other day I came across a weblog that quibbled about a translation seen in the Spanish subtitles of an episode of "I Love Lucy". The author, who admitted to knowing little Spanish, thought the subtitles were inaccurate, and cited an example of someone coaxing another person as he moved a heavy object by saying, "Easy!" The subtitle said, "Cuidado", which means "Careful". That is a good and accurate translation, in this context. To have translated "Easy" as "Fácil", the first dictionary equivalent of "easy" would have been totally wrong. Here are several reasons why:
1 - Dialogue is largely non-verbal. Some studies claim that only 40% of the meaning of a conversation is conveyed by the words. Verbal communication is an exercise in impact as well as in conveyance of information. In translating dialogue to make subtitles, the translator must reproduce the impact as well as the information. So a very loose translation may be much better than a rigid one.
2 - As one commentor on that blog mentioned, English has about three times more words than just about any other language, partly because we have borrowed from everywhere, and mostly because English is the degenerate result of unhappy co-existence of Norman French and British Isles Anglo-Saxon (plus others). In translating from English, translators have fewer options than those going into English. This fact also allows for English to accomplish by virtue of word choice what others accomplish by other means, such as verb tense.
I laugh to think of what might be done with the translation of some conversations if not cnsidered in context and with attention to impact. Just imagine (and apologies to those who don't speak Spanish):
A: Why don't you grow up? (¿Por qué no creces?)
B: Why don't you make me? (¿Por qué no me haces?
A: You're so full of yourself. (Estás tan lleno de ti mismo.)
B: It takes one to know one. (Require a uno para conocer a uno.)
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