Spasm Solvents
Yesterday, a colleague at a professional support forum asked fellow colleagues to suggest English translations for some medical terms in Turkish. He was translating some text on a certain herbal (Valeriana officinalis). He said that he is sure about the translation of certain terms to English, and listed them. Among others, he was sure that “spazm çözücü” is “spasm solvent” in English.
All of his suggestions were far from being correct, but this one was a good candidate for a medical blooper, and also a good support for my contention that back translation is not a measure of quality of the original translation, even for the technical documents!
The correct English term is “antispasmodic.” And “spasm solvent” is utterly meaningless. But, to my surprise, I noticed that there are others who also translated “spazm çözücü” as “spasm solvent.” A Turkish herbal site selling herbal products contains more than one instance of “spasm solvent.” Unfortunately, their English page has gone, as it seems, but its cache is still there, at least as of today. www.isikbaharat.com/inglzurunlerimiz.htm
I found cache of another site that mentions “spasm solvent,” but it too seems unavailable: www.abailac.net/en/ms1.asp
By the way, when we back translate our blooper into Turkish, we get the perfectly meaningful Turkish version: “spazm çözücü.” This is just one example supporting the assertion that back translation is not a good measure of the original translation. A translation can be utterly meaningless, and yet yield a perfectly matched original when back translated.
If you find this page while searching for a Turkish language translator, please go to my English Turkish translation homepage.