The typical work day of an English to French translator is marked with many linguistic dilemmas. One of  those quandaries is whether to translate specialized terms with newly created equivalents or to leave them in English in the middle of a localized sentence.

There are basically three ways a linguist may proceed:

The Purist approach

The discussion surrounding whether the English words could be retained in the translation text has been going on for a long time. And it will likely never come to an end.

How to translate it, sometimes the decision must come from a good understanding of who the target audience will be: is the localized document going to be read by experienced professionals who are most likely familiar with the English terms since their inception.

Examples:

• In some cases, how to translate the text sometimes depending on context. The word “manager” for instance can either stay as manager or become responsable, same goes for “leader”, which can remain as leader or be translated as chef.

The Globalized Approach

The globalized approach might be effective when speaking of datacenters in French, a term which is commonly used by professionals.

In some cases, the use of English is justified by the fact that French equivalents may sound too made up or more confusing than the original.

Example:

For instance, anyone working in the IT industry would immediately know what a shareware is, even if they’ve never actually encountered the term before.

However, it becomes less likely to encounter terms that can be used just as well in their foreign and localized forms. For example, the concept of “Big Data”, which is fairly recent, has entered the French lexicon as is. There are also cases where it just doesn’t work.

The Bilingual Approach

Finally, there are times when a compromise might be best. This is the bilingual approach, which allows linguists to use the English term followed by a translation in brackets. The method is particularly useful with acronyms. While some are so commonplace that target audiences know what they mean (such as DVD, API).

Conclusion

One should always take several factors into account when deciding which approach to choose: 

    Who is the target audience?
    How well-known is the word?

Only professional translators working in their native language can reliably make that call. So it isn’t only a matter of philosophy – it’s also about common sense and in-depth linguistic knowledge.