How do false friends affect the accuracy of translations from Ukrainian to English

False friends significantly affect the accuracy of translations from Ukrainian to English by causing misunderstandings or mistranslations due to words that look or sound similar in both languages but have different meanings. These lexical pitfalls can lead to errors, especially in specialized fields like scientific, technical, legal, or academic translation, affecting clarity and precision.

Nature of False Friends in Ukrainian-English Translation

False friends are words that appear equivalent between Ukrainian and English but hold different meanings, leading translators to improper equivalents. This issue is exacerbated by polysemous words (words with multiple meanings) and terms without exact equivalents, resulting in mistranslation if context is ignored or poorly understood. ^{1, 2}

Impact on Translation Accuracy

• False friends produce translation errors that distort the original meaning, potentially causing communication breakdowns.
• In scientific and technical contexts, such mistakes reduce precision and may create confusion or misinformation.
• They can undermine comprehension of academic abstracts, legal texts, and specialized vocabulary unless the translator carefully interprets the context and uses accurate equivalents. ^{3, 4, 1}
• The presence of false friends demands heightened translator awareness, contextual analysis, use of reliable dictionaries, and often domain-specific knowledge to avoid errors. ^{2, 5}

Challenges and Solutions

• Translators face additional difficulty as some false friends appear among internationalisms or commonly used terms, tempting automated approaches or novices into faulty substitutions.
• Strategies to overcome false friend challenges include training translators to recognize them, improving standardization of terminology, and employing comparative lexical-semantic analysis. ^{5, 1, 3}
• Detailed contextual analysis and domain expertise can mitigate erroneous translations caused by these deceptive lexical pairs. ^{4, 2}

In summary, false friends introduce a notable risk to translation accuracy from Ukrainian to English by misguiding translators into incorrect word choices, necessitating careful linguistic and contextual competence to preserve meaning fidelity in translation. This is especially critical in professional, scientific, and technical communication where exactness is paramount.

References

• CHALLENGES AND INNOVATIONS IN SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TRANSLATION: TERMINOLOGICAL COMPLEXITIES AND ‘FALSE FRIENDS’

• THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF “THE FALSE FRIENDS OF THE INTERPRETER” ON THE ENGLISH CONTEXT (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF ARCHITECTURAL VOCABULARY)

• INTERNATIONALISMS IN ENGLISH LEGAL VOCABULARY: CHALLENGES IN RENDERING INTO UKRAINIAN

• Some aspects of translating abstracts of research art papers into English

• ON THE ISSUE OF LEXICAL PROBLEMS IN TRANSLATING SCIENTIFIC PAPER TITLES

• Interférences sémantiques des langues et « faux amis » de traducteur

• How the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out – on the backstage of international politics from Jakub Kumoch’s perspective

• Ukrainian historical terminology designating social and military status in Old Rus’: Examining their counterparts in English

• Equivalence in Ukrainian-English translation of institutional academic terminology

• STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF ACADEMICIANS OF UKRAINE

• “PYSMONAVTYKA” BY TETIANA STUS AS A COURSE OF LITERARY CREATIVITY FOR CHILDREN

• TRANSLATION ASPECT IN BUSINESS CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

• LANGUAGE LOCALIZATION OF UKRAINIAN OUTDATED VOCABULARY VIA AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH

• LANGUAGE MANIPULATION MEANS IN ENGLISH LOVE DISCOURSE AND ITS TRANSLATION INTO UKRAINIAN

• Ethnographisms as means of colloquality stylization in the modern belletristic narration

• Toxicity Classification in Ukrainian

• Help Ukraine