It seems like something that, on paper, should be very easy to accomplish. Is it just down to the fact that certain things cannot be translated directly from one language to another?
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Even though some linguists believe that language is a very structual system like math (and they call this system “glossematik” if you want to read about it) it isn’t exactly the case. Yes sentences have structures and words have meanings but language is incredibly effected by culture. Even though translating literal sentences to literal sentences is completely possible these literal translations might not give the meaning you want to convey. This is all about culture. Let’s take a look at some examples :
In English you would say “It’s raining cats and dogs” to express the idea that it is heavily raining, while Turks would say “Bardaktan boşanırcasına yağmur yağıyor” and that translated literally is “It’s raining like pouring out of a glass” even though you can get an idea, you wouldn’t translate it like this. You would use the proper translation which is “It’s raining cats and dogs”.
This is called “localization”. You take a script, understand the meaning and recreate it in a way that your target audience will internalize it. If you’re watching a Turkish TV series and a character says “İnşallah” that will be translated as “I hope” because you have no idea how or when İnşallah is used. You wouldn’t internalize it.
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