Literal Translation Isn't Bad Translation. It's Unreviewed Translation.
People love to blame "literal translation" when a translated line lands flat. I've come to think the blame is misplaced. Literal isn't the problem. Unreviewed is.
A literal draft is honest: it shows you exactly what the source said, word for word, with nothing smoothed over and nothing hidden. That's a useful starting point. The failure happens when that draft goes straight to the audience with no one asking three questions:
Does this idiom exist in the target language? If not, the literal version isn't "faithful" β it's nonsense in the new language.
Does the register match? A line that's blunt in the source shouldn't come out polite in translation, or vice versa. Tone is meaning too.
Would the target audience actually say this? Not "would they understand it if they tried" β would they say it, in this scene, to this person?
Take one example I keep coming back to.β¦
