One of the most fascinating – and, at times, irritating – aspects of translation is where there is no direct one-to-one relationship between words in the source language and the target language. Take the word ‘conductor’, for example. In English, the word covers a variety of meanings. In Swedish – a language closely related to English – each meaning is covered by a different word. Get it wrong and there could be hilarious consequences. Yet no English speaker, on reading in a review of an orchestral concert that ‘X is an excellent conductor’, would be … Continue reading