Basic Words Can Be the Most Difficult to Translate
Despite their apparent simplicity, a language's most common words may be the hardest to translate.
“The words that are truly difficult to translate are often the small, common words. For example, in all its various uses the verb "to get" covers nearly seven columns of the most recent version of the Robert-Collins French-English dictionary. The same is true for most apparently simple, common words, such as "go" (seven columns), "come" (four and a half columns), and so forth.
Cultural aspects can complicate translation. Consider the example of a word like "bread". At first glance, it is a very simple word, referring in everyday use to just one thing, with obvious translations in other languages. But ask people from England, France or China to describe or draw "bread", du pain or 面包 (miàn bāo), and they will describe different things, based on their individual cultures.
Differing levels of precision inherent in a language also play a role. What does "there" mean? Even discounting idiomatic uses such as "there, there, don't cry", we can be confronted by several possibilities. If something is "there" but nearer to you than to me, in Spanish I'll say aquí; if it is away from you and me I'll say allí, and if there are connotations of "near there", "over yonder" or "on that side", I'll likely say allá. Conversely, in colloquial French, all three "there" concepts plus the concept of "here" all tend to be expressed with the word là.”
Excerpt from “Translation” from Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia
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