Don’t Do It Back, Do It Again

We have all probably heard people who are not English native speakers and who sometimes speak in a way that sounds like Armenian translated into English. Many who know Armenian enough to make the distinction have probably heard sentences that sound like... English translated into Armenian.

How do you correct this issue? First of all, you pay attention to what you say. Secondly, you should note that not everything that you think and say in one language necessarily makes the same sense in the other. Thirdly, you should learn and, most importantly, apply what you learn to correct your own speech. In the end, the most important thing is communication, but quality of communication is even more important.

Such cases have been discussed in this column. Another example is, for instance, the sentence: “I went back to sleep.” It is a perfectly normal English sentence. However, the problem starts when you try to make it into a “perfectly normal” Armenian sentence:

Katsee yed knanaloo (Գացի ետ քնանալու).

Rest assured that this is not “normal” Armenian, and not only the sentence sounds wrong, but it is wrong. The idea that you try to convey is that, after your sleep was interrupted, you went to sleep again. When you translate a sentence, you do not translate only the words, but also the meaning, and thus you do not make literal translations when the words are not their exact equivalent (meaning included) in the other language.

In this case, you translate the meaning “again” and not the word “back,” because katsee yed knanaloo sounds like “I fell back to sleep.” The result should be:

Katsee noren knanaloo (Գացի նորէն քնանալու).