Hi! My name is Krystian Aparta,

and I'm going to talk about
translating terminology.

So, as translators, we all know

that because one word
can mean many things,

we can't just translate a word,

but we first need to find out
what concept it refers to,

and then, what words are used for
that concept in our target language.

And it's usually enough
to look at the context for that.

So with a word like "mouse"
in the first sentence here,

from the context, we know that it
refers to just our general domain

of the knowledge
and experience with mice,

and in the second sentence, it refers
to a more specialized domain

of computer devices.

When we're translating a word like
"mouse" in the first sentence,

we just go to our general
knowledge of the language,

and do a so-called "literal"
or "word-for-word" translation.

But with a word like "mouse"
in the second sentence

that refers to a specialized domain,

we can't really do
a literal translation,

but first, we need to find out...

Well, if we didn't know
anything about computers,

we would need to do some research

and find out what this device
is called in our language.

And this is important,

because even though in English one
word can refer to both things,

in a foreign language the specialized term
can have a different, non-literal translation.

For example, in Japanese, "mouse"
in the rodent sense is "nezumi,"

and "mouse" as the computer
pointing device is "mausu."

And you can tell that "mausu"
and "nezumi" are totally different.

I will refer to a word that refers
to a specialized domain as a "term."

Now, it's usually easy to tell
that a word or phrase is a term.

Very often, terms are capitalized.

So, these two phrases mean
something completely different,

and they may have a different
translation in your language.

Like in Spanish, the landmark
sense is "la Gran Muralla China,"

and the literal translation
is "la pared grande,"

which is just some wall
in a house somewhere.

Also, words that seem difficult or
"sound foreign" are often terms.

So when we come across a word
like "velocity" or "aperture,"

we sort of get the feeling
that we need to look it up.

There are cases, though, where it's hard
to tell if a word is actually a term,

and then we need to, first, find out
if it does work like a term in English,

and then whether there is an established
translation in our target language,

or if we have to make up our own.

And I would like to share
an experience like this...

that happened when I was
reviewing the Polish translation

of Janna Levin's talk on
the sound of the universe

by Kinga Skorupska.

And this example is used by
the translator's permission.

At one point in the talk, Janna
Levin uses the phrase "dust lanes,"

which was translated in
Polish as "ścieżki pyłu,"

a literal translation that
basically means "paths of dust."

And because Janna Levin uses a lot of
specialist vocabulary in her talk,

I wasn't really sure if
the literal translation would work.

So, I needed to find out
if "dust lane" is a term.

I started by googling
"'dust lane' galaxy,"

and these quotation marks are there
to look for this exact phrase.

And I found this Wikipedia entry
on the Sombrero galaxy,

which did contain the term
"dust lane" in the same meaning.

So, this confirmed that "dust lane"
was indeed a term in English.

Now, I needed to find
the Polish translation.

And the first thing I did was to go to
the Polish entry on the Sombrero galaxy,

which contained this sentence,
translated literally as:

"is partially occluded by a belt
(torus) of nonluminescent matter."

And at this point, "torus" seemed like a good
enough candidate for "dust lane" in Polish,

but I wasn't really sure if this was
only a word used in this article

or the established term in Polish.

And to find out about this,
I did another Google search,

this time in Polish,
for "torus galaktyka."

And I found this Wikipedia
entry on the Seyfert galaxy,

containing this sentence,
which literally translates as:

la la la, "closest vicinity of the active
core (known as a dust torus)."

And there!

I thought I was done,
and this was my translation:

"dust lane" translates as "torus
pyłowy" or "dust torus" in Polish.

But then I thought they
may not be that similar.

Because as much as a "lane,"
usually being straight,

can sometimes be used
for something circular,

a "torus" is always like a circle.

So, I needed to find out
if the term "dust lane" in English

was really used for
something circular,

like a "torus" would be.

I went to Google again, and did a
search for "'dust lane' galaxy,"

but this time an image search.

But all it gave me were these
pretty images of galaxies,

but nothing to confirm
or disconfirm my idea.

Then, I did another search,

for "'straight|long' dust lane',"

and this straight
line works like "OR."

This is because we don't usually
refer to circles as "straight" or "long."

This brought me to a page containing
images and descriptions of galaxies,

and one of the descriptions had
the phrase "long dust lane" in it.

But comparing the descriptions and
images for other galaxies on this page,

I saw that they were
all pretty similar.

So, "dust lane" did refer to something
circular in all these images.

And there, I had my term.

"Dust lane" was translated
as "torus pyłowy,"

or literally "dust torus," in Polish.

As translators, you probably go through
investigations like these all the time.

But I wanted to share
this story, because...

Outsmarting a talk that wants
to hide away a term from me

is, to me, one of the most exciting
parts of the process of translation.

Thank you.