While music may often be described as the universal, a translator’s take may be rather different. Indeed, translating a song from one language to another presents a number of challenges in staying faithul to the idea of, and communicating the feel of the original.
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In this fresh new post on MusicThinkTank by Ronnie Avelino, he explains the difficulty of translating a song from one language to another.
“So much work goes into lyrics translation. The translator has to consider how to adapt the song to the target’s culture, what words are to be accentuated by the singer, the alliteration, rhymes and words’ connotations. There is also the general theme and the underlying notes – sad, mellow, fun, poetic, etc.”