Translate pronouns to Vietnamese

One of the big problems for an English – Vietnamese translator when doing his job is about how to translate pronouns, like ‘I’, ‘You’, ‘He’, ‘She’.

It’s hard because in Vietnamese, how the first person call themselves depend on his relationship with the second person! A father will call himself “father” if he is talking to his daughter or son. It goes like this: “Hey son, ‘father’ want to see how ‘son’ is doing.” And because of that, a simple sentence “I want to see how you are doing” can be translated in a dozens of ways! And there is no way around this.

So, how can a great Vietnamese translator overcome this and deliver a perfect translation for his client? First, he needs to understand the context of the conversation. Is it formal, is it romantic, is it serious? All of it counts. Second, he needs to know (and sometimes guess) the relationship between people. “Sister” in English include younger/older sister, while in Vietnamese, there is no such word, it must be younger sister or older sister.

Know which pronouns to use is key to an English-Vietnamese translation. The writing will be native or not depend on this a lot. So it worth taking the time to learn about the context to deliver the best translation possible.