Re: THEORY: Expanding in translation?

Den 7. mar. 2008 kl. 19.17 skreiv Jim Henry:

> Somewhere or other Claude Piron, responding to someone saying
> that Esperanto is too verbose, points out that translation -- between
> almost any pair of languages -- almost always results in an increased
> length of text.  I forget what he said the average increase is, but
> it was something like 10%.
>
> Is that true in your experience as well?
Not at all, if he means professional translation. I agree that
amateurs tend to expand texts a little, could be about 10%. I have
proofread enough samples of amateur attempts to know, and come across
some of my own early ones, blushing. But part of the professional job
is to avoid such things. Of course there are languages that tend to
compress or expand a little by themselves. This you must allow for,
except if you have space limits, like in software localisation for
example (can often be tricky). Looking briefly through my files I
don't find any significant difference between, Norwegian, English and
French as to number of characters, while the German ones seem to be
significantly longer.

LEF

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