Translators and the Problems of Cross Cultural Translation

Abstract

A translator acts like a bridge that connects readers with a writer’s knowledge, ideas and desires.  Translators need not only to have good language skills in the source language and the target language, but they also need to be well-grounded in the original text, especially the cultural aspects and the interdisciplinary subjects underlying the text.  One may conclude that language, translation and culture are closely related.  This article aims to study translators’ roles and the problems of cross-cultural translation they often encounter and to which they need to find solutions.  The study explores three topics: (1) an analysis and summary of a professional translator’s opinion on the importance of cultural context and the collection of a knowledge base, (2) the problem of language translation overlapping the knowledge base problem, and (3) the problem of translating across different cultures.