Lost in Translation

During some of my tutoring lessons I often have students frustrated with the number of phrases or expressions they encounter that are so common to the English language. These phrases take quite a bit of explaining in order to get to the meaning of things. For example: one of my Spanish primary language students was told that someone in their office had ‘come down with something’ and was therefore sent home to see a doctor. The phrase ‘come down with’ literally would mean something very different than the phrase ‘come down with’ a cold, flu, illness etcetera. As a matter of fact the phrase alone would be nonsense, so why not just use the actual word for this meaning ‘sick’? Often times I tell my students well, languages have a life of their own and the idiosyncrasies need to be learned as if you were learning to spell a word in another language for the first time.

In contemplating the possibilities, we so regularly speak in phrases that it becomes second nature. English becomes difficult to learn when phrases are used to express meaning instead to the actual words. The following is a more extensive example of how we use phrases in our everyday speaking ( I have put quotes around the phrases):

Hello Dr. Smith I ‘look forward’ to hearing your speech about the history of Thanksgiving. I’ve always ‘looked up’ to you as a scholar and could not ‘pass up’ the chance of attending.

Well, thank you Dr. Jones. I’m so glad I ‘ran into’ you at the conference last week. In ‘thinking back’ wasn’t your wife with you then? I would like for you and your wife to ‘look into’ joining our council on historical affairs. I hope we can ‘count on’ you.

Of course Dr. Smith, I’ll ‘drop by’ after your lecture to discuss further.

So, we see:
Look forward – be excited about the future
Looked up – admired
Pass up – decline (usually something good)
Ran into – meet unexpectedly
Thinking back – remembering
Look into – investigate
Count on – rely
Drop by – come without an appointment

Well, no wonder that English is not an easy language to learn! Then, there are all those words that are written the same but pronounced differently, read (present and past tense), tear (cry/tear and rip/tear), and the ones written differently but pronounced the same: write/right, wrap/rap, sea/see, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, whew! What a mess. Isn’t language fun?

If you’re interested in getting the complete list of the most common phrasal verbs in English just post something on this blog or email me and I’ll do my best to get it to you asap (that’s the commonly written phrase for ‘as soon as possible’.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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Ibis Sardinas,
Translator, Interpreter
Accurate Translating and Accent Absent