Challenges in Arabic Translation: What Makes Arabic Language More Difficult?

Arabic is the part of Semantic family of languages.

If you want to standardize written communication in the Arabic language, then Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) language is something you focus on. It is quite different from regional dialects as well as classical Arabic.

In that case, the translation problem can be split into linguistic as well as cultural categories. Linguistic issues such as lexicon, syntax, morphology, rhetorical differences, text differences, and pragmatic factors.

However, there are a few challenges that you will definitely be going to face when it comes to performing accurate English To Arabic Translation.

Let’s dive deeper.

Challenges in Arabic Translation

It’s time to find out what makes the Arabic language so difficult and challenging to translate a document from the source language to this language.

1- Various Dialects

Arabic has more than 274 million native speakers globally, and it is the most widely spoken language.

Because it has the widely used standard dialect – Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the language has more than 25 Arabic dialects.

However, other forms of Arabic dialects can be split into various categories: Modern Standard Arabic, Quranic or Classical Arabic, and Colloquial or Daily Arabic.

Qur’anic Arabic is one of the endangered languages. It was mainly used in teaching as well as practising the religious texts in Early Islamic Literature.

According to one of the crucial facts about Arabic, Whereas, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the most commonly used Arabic dialect, and it is generally used in literature, schools, media, and technology-related areas etc.

These dialects generally don’t come with a standard form. Therefore, it is possible to see several words borrowed from different languages of the neighbouring countries.

2- Complex Nature

The complexity of the Arabic language makes the inexperienced translators feel confused. Thus, it is very challenging to come up with the right terminology while doing Arabic translations.

Another complexity confronted by novice translators would be capitalization.

In Arabic, there are no capital letters. This can be very confusing for translators to know the context as well as the meaning thoroughly.

Since the Arabic alphabet involves sounds which are not there in the English language, translators often merge a few letters to get the same sound as in the source text.

Because many companies are expanding to Arab countries, it is vital to know why is Arabic translation important. No matter how hard they try, translated names still don’t get a similar feeling as well as sound as Arabic versions.

Here, some translators could even Englishise a few names, which do not leave any charm of the Arabic language.

3- Difficult writing format

Arabic follows the RTL writing format which means read and written from right to left.

In this period of time, the alphabet creates the basis of the alphabets we are utilizing today.

These scripts were most frequently written vertically, and as they were written on stones or tablets, it was quite simple for the right-handed person to compose anything from right to left while holding the chisel or hammer in their left hand.

This brought the RTL format used widely by Jews, Arabs, and Phoenicians.

Being part of the popular most spoken future language, The writing and reading format of Arabic brings out its own more challenges for several translators, especially when it is about flipping the design as well as formatting of content from an LTR to RTL format.

4- Very Poetic And Figurative Language

Arabic is a figurative and poetic language where several use figures of proverbs, speech and different literary devices like similes and metaphors.

Thus, adopting a word-for-word translation approach while doing Arabic translation would fail to express the feeling of the source text; in this case, it would be an Arabic text.

Since Arabic speakers more often utilize long sentences, translation of such long sentences challenges a beginner translator who is actually confused by every literary device as well as figurative language elements going on within the text.

To overcome these challenges, the best solution is to hire the prominent Arabic translation agency in NCR which has a skilled translator to work on your project.

Final Words

The difference between the original language as well as the target language, and huge variations in their religious and social cultures, make the complete process of translating from Arabic to English a big challenge. Only if the translator has a good understanding of the Arab culture, and its specific linguistic guidelines and many differences, he/she can translate the implied meaning accurately.

Do you need professional Arabic translation help? Get more information about us at +91-8527599523 or simply request an free quote.