Chapter 8: Translating English to Hindi: Experts Needed

Dr. Mahesh Sharma

One of the biggest issues with Hindi translation today is the lack of uniformity in the use of a "Hindi (Devanagari) Font". There are dozens of fonts in use, and the lack of standardisation makes life very difficult for the Hindi language translator.

Medical vocabulary is complex, and it cannot be translated well by someone who has only average language skills. The translator should be familiar with the formal writing style used medical books and journal articles, so that the translated documents will look professional. However, the style of writing can vary from one medical document to another. For example, translations of medical marketing materials can follow a more informal style and tone, whereas a clinical study report must be more structured.

Acronyms and abbreviations are widely used in medicine and these can confuse an inexperienced translator. Thus, BP may stands for blood pressure or bipolar disease; while NVD means nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea or may also mean normal vaginal delivery. Hence, translating medical terms is tricky and needs expertise and experience.

Typically, medical translators are of two kinds - general and specialist. A general medical translator needs to translate documents for the use of a layperson, such as those working in the administration of a hospital, or those giving patients instructions. Such a translator only needs to have basic medical knowledge. A specialist medical translator, on the other hand, translates technical and scientific documents that contain specialised details, such as those found in medical journal articles. He or she must possess an in-depth understanding of the specialisation, including all the medical terms that are used.

Quality assurance is the biggest challenge a medical translator faces. How does one ensure the accuracy of the translated document? The simplest option is to get a skilled assistant to review and edit it. It is also very important to have an end user review the final translation for readability. Formal protocols for translation and validation have also been developed, which involve forward and back-translation and group-validation to ensure the meaning is not altered as a result of the translation (a process called post hoc conceptual equivalence rating.)

For example, a "back-translation" is a translation of a translated text back into the language of the original text, made without reference to the original text. Comparison of a back-translation with the original text is sometimes used as a check of the accuracy of the original translation, much as the accuracy of a mathematical operation is sometimes checked by reversing the operation. But while useful as approximate checks, the results of such reverse operations are not always reliable because words, unlike numbers, are often ambiguous and may carry an intended meaning beyond their literal meaning.

This is often a problem with simplistic online tools like Google Translate. Today there are CAT (Computer-Aided Translation) tools available, which enable translators to facilitate faster, more consistent translations. These include machine translation (MT), machine-aided human translation (MAHT) and interactive translation that use software to translate text from one language to another. On a basic level, MT performs simple substitution of words in one language for words in another, but that alone cannot produce a good translation of a text, because recognition of whole phrases and their closest counterparts in the target language is needed.

Solving this problem with statistical techniques is a rapidly growing field that is leading to better translations. Just how good is the output from Google Translate? Well, it depends. Sometimes it is terrible, but other times it is effective. It clearly depends on the subject matter and language pair being used. While Google Translate can be a good tool to assist in translation, it cannot yet replace a human translator. There are many nuances in languages and translation that a statistical approach or a computer program cant "understand". If you are looking for a quick rough translation, Google Translate is great. For a high level professional translation, at the very least, someone skilled needs to edit the translation.

There are also a number of technical problems that still need to be ironed out. One of the biggest issues with Hindi translation today is the lack of uniformity in the use of a "Hindi (Devanagari) Font". There are dozens of fonts in use, and the lack of standardisation makes life very difficult for the Hindi language translator.

Medical translators serve to bridge the gap between health care providers and patients, which is why they have a pivotal role to play in taking health literacy to the masses. India is a diverse country and we need linguistically proficient and culturally sensitive medical translators who can translate health information materials into local language.