Is It Impossible to Translate Humour?

Translating humour is tricky, especially when it’s specific to a language or a culture, or a group of people.

Humour comes in many different shapes and forms. It comes from double meanings, situations, wordplay, and cultural references that are either hidden or obvious. Also, it can be subjective most of the time. The same things may be humorous to some people and not funny to others. Moreover, elements like humour can enhance the quintessential ingredient of a write-up. 

Why Is Translating Business Difficult?

Everyone likes to laugh, no matter what language they speak. However, what makes one laugh can be very different for each person, language, and cultural group. However, to be funny, you must use many different parts of language to do so (e.g., puns, regionalisms, wordplay, and cultural references). A literal translation of humour can be a joke on its own, not to mention an impossible task for the translator. However, it’s not always easy to find words that make sense when translated into another language. This means that they will have to recreate from scratch.

The Challenges Of Translating Humour

The first thing that makes translating humour so difficult is that you must be culturally and situationally correct. There are other things that a translator has to do, like make sure that the words make sense. It’s equally essential to maintain the joke’s impact while translating it from one language to another and culture to another. Moreover, it would be best to keep in mind that what is acceptable in one culture may not be acceptable in another one. When it comes to translating comedy, translators face several difficulties. Please have a look at a few of them.

Maintain Humour And Timing

Everyone knows that timing is the key to making people laugh. Punchlines are very important when making a joke, so translators need to be aware of this. When the punchline shows up on the screen before the actor says it, we’ve all seen this problem a lot in subtitles. People may not like this because it’s ruining the joke. Hence, while translating the humour, you must pay attention to small differences in timing. Additionally, it’s not just about the words you choose but also about how they are displayed or conveyed.

Be Creative

Additionally, it’s hard to translate humour because you have to think outside the box when you do it. When talking about meaning, there may not be a good word for it, or it may not be accurate enough to convey the meaning into the target language. However, a translator must choose between being faithful and translating the message correctly with the same effect of laughter. This is what a translator should do.

However, humour translation is more than just translating words. Further, a translator’s role is to correctly translate a message from one language to another without weakening its essence. So, a smart and skilled translator can show humour to the target audience while keeping its sense and emotions.