“Translate into” vs. “Translate to”

“Translate into” vs. “Translate to”

translate to -  English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
Here's how it works:

    Anybody can ask a question
    Anybody can answer
    The best answers are voted up and rise to the top

“Translate into” vs. “Translate to”
up vote
    

Does one translate a word or phrase into another language or to another language? For example:

    Translate the following phrase to Spanish.
    Translate the following phrase into Spanish.

word-choice prepositions
shareimprove this question
   
jrdioko

   
      
   
related: When should “into” be used rather than “in to,” and vice versa? – Matt E. Эллен♦ 
   
Does one need to evaluate what's important in life or does one give up? – osknows 
   

In my experience/dialect, you use translate into when you are talking about the target language, but you can optionally use translate to when you are talking about the target text (the specific equivalent for the piece of original text you're talking about).

For example, all of these are acceptable:
    (1) I translated "I like cats" into Spanish.

    (2) I translated "I like cats" into "Me gustan los gatos."

    (3) I translated "I like cats" to "Me gustan los gatos."

Note that translate to is very commonly used intransitively, e.g.:

    (4) "I like cats" translates to "Me gustan los gatos."

However, you can't use translate into intransitively, and you can't translate to a language as a whole. Thus, these are unacceptable:

    (1a) *I translated "I like cats" to Spanish.

    (4a) *"I like cats" translates into "Me gustan los gatos."


alcas
     
   
+1 for drawing a fine distinction. – Kris D

Did you find this question interesting? Try our newsletter

Sign up for our newsletter and get our top new questions delivered to your inbox (see an example).

As far as translation is concerned, you translate into another language. You don't translate to it.

Barrie England

Do you have a cite? – jwpat7 
    
@jwpat7: Apart from my own experience and practice, the OED has five citations for ‘translate to’ and none of them concerns language. It has 42 for ‘translate into’ and almost all concern language. There may be rare instances where ‘translate to [language]’ are found, but if the OP is asking for straightforward advice, I believe I have given it. – Barrie England Dec 9 '11 at 18:51
      
   
@jwpat7: It's the general case. See this NGram for evidence that translate to is rarely used in any context. – FumbleFingers Dec 9 '11 at 18:51
      
   
The only context in which I've heard translate to is when the subject of the verb is also the thing that's being translated (e.g., X, which translates to Y, is...). – onomatomaniak Dec 9 '11 at 19:16
      
   
Is there any semantic difference between these two cases? – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the BBC English dictionary and the OED one translates into another language.

Translate to is used alongside translate into in a sentence like :

    The rates translate to monthly payments of $399...

and translate to is used when translating something to something :

    This book was translated to film....

But google gives hundreds of instances of use of "translate to" another language.

“Translate into” vs. “Translate to”

Dengan adanya informasi yang kami sajikan tentang translate to

, harapan kami semoga anda dapat terbantu dan menjadi sebuah rujukan anda. Atau juga anda bisa melihat referensi lain kami juga yang lain dimana tidak kalah bagusnya tentang Website Translation | Translate Websites Quickly

. Sekian dan kami ucapkan terima kasih atas kunjungannya.
buka mesin jahit : http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51209/translate-into-vs-translate-to/51215