Lost in translation an everyday occurrence

When writing about the historical figure "Limadou", if the author had preserved the original name in Latin alphabet, a reader of any language could go online for deeper research about the famous Italian Matteo Ricci.

Another problem is the absence of uniformity. For instance, the "ka" syllable of Canada, Canon, and Carducci are translated into Chinese as 加, 佳, and 卡, respectively meaning "to add", "excellent", and "card". There are all positive meanings for the Chinese, but in fact, only the third one reproduces the sound "ka", others being pronounced "jia". If, as exists in Japanese, there were a series of characters reserved to the phonetic translation of foreign names, no matter the meaning of the characters, this could be very useful.

A large number of languages using romanization set one spelling for foreign words they use instead of translating these nouns. They choose the closest to the original pronunciation, and they all use the same word, such as "spaghetti" (Italian), "tennis" (English), "furher" (German), "corrida" (Spanish), "veranda" (Portuguese), "pacha" (Turkish), "Islam" (Arabic), "geyser" (Icelandic), "Inuit" (Eskimo), etc. That is a very pragmatic choice.

Chinese are obsessive sticklers for translation, saying "people will not understand. Some Chinese realities can't be translated. Jiaozi should remain jiaozi in other languages; they are not raviolis, or dumplings."

Sometimes translation borders on ridicule. "Hard Rock" became 硬石,literally "a hard stone". After Beijing subway line 4 opened, the well-known Hailong electronics market in Zhongguancun became Hilon market. Hailong means "Sea Dragon" in Chinese, a beautiful and powerful image. Even those who don't know Chinese can correctly pronounce Hailong. What was the reason to change it into Hilon, a word without meaning, more difficult to remember?

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