Telling prepositional verbs apart is a back-breaking, Herculean mental task for both native English language users and non-natives alike.
Interestingly, this is quite an unsurprising phenomenon according to language experts, as learning prepositions entail a higher level of grammatical maturity.
So, you should never, ever panic about why you cannot easily make out the difference between using “translate into” and “translate to.”
And of course, Linguaholic has also got this matter covered for you.
Let’s get to the cake filling straight away.
What is the difference between using “translate into” and “translate to”?
While “translate into” is used to describe the process of “transformation,” “translate to” is used to denote a sense of “direction” or “movement.” For example, you can “translate oral or written data into a target language like French,” and you can “translate an expression to a target expression.”
Differentiating “translate into” and “translate to”
“Translate into” is used more often than “translate to,” which means a larger collection of corpus exists for the former prepositional verb.
Natives and non-natives often find the subtle nuances between using “translate into” and “translate to” either annoying or harrowing.
For the most part, native speakers can easily tell you the more suitable preposition after the verb “to translate” if you give them some context, but most of them cannot explain such cases in ample detail.
It is needless to say that non-natives also find this matter even more excruciating, to say the least, unless their interest or profession allows them to do so.
To put these things simply, “translate into” is used when referring to a transformation of one kind of entity into another, such as in the context of language translation for instance.
Note that “translate into” is particularly used in referring to the translation process of speeches or texts into a target language, which can actually be the same or different from the source language.
The translation process within the same language is referred to as “intralingual translation,” whereas translating from one language to another is what we call “interlingual translation.”
Example:
And by extension, using “translate to” in the context of the same example above makes the sentence grammatically lopsided, albeit not necessarily unintelligible.
Example:
If this is the case, then how are we supposed to use “translate to”? To make the distinction clearer, let me refer to the context of translating languages again as an example.
“Translate to,” in the context of language translation as well, is most likely used to refer to the target word, phrase, or clause, or put simply the target text.
This means that we need to use “translate to” when referring to the translation mechanism of a particular word, phrase, or clause to a new word, phrase, or clause in a different language, just like the next example:
Example:
Based on the pattern you’re seeing, you would likely figure that the example usage of “translate into” below is, therefore, also comprehensible but unnatural.
Bear in mind that the human mind is powerful enough to let go of such trivial irregularity because, after all, the holistic meaning of the sentence or utterance matters more.
Example:
These are pretty much what you only need to bear in mind in order to distinguish “translate into” from “translate to.”
But, to get these pieces of information even further together, we will also review the grammatical background of each expression in detail below.
A grammatical breakdown for “translate into”
In the context of language translation, “translate into” is used to describe the “transformation process” of a collection of linguistic data, such as a written or spoken conversation, a script, or a scholarly article into a target language.
Pragmatically speaking, the context in which the phrase “translates into” appears is also equally crucial in making sense of what it really means.
In general, “to translate into” is frequently used to denote the meaning “to result in” or “to lead to something,” just like in the example given below.
Example:
In terms of syntax or sentence construction, “translate into” cannot be used intransitively, and hence, a noun phrase must be added between “translate” and “into” to be able to form a syntactically correct sentence.
If we are to apply rigid syntactic rules the example below is grammatically incorrect:
Example:
For comparison, here are two syntactically correct ways to use the transitive verb “to translate” together with the preposition “into”:
Examples:
To understand the concept of transitivity further, you may refer to our complete guide on transitive verbs as well as on intransitive verbs.
A grammatical breakdown for “translate to”
Now that we’ve already covered the subtleties behind “translate into,” we can now proceed with the grammatical breakdown on “translate to” for more comprehensive learning.
Semantically speaking, the preposition “to” is used to refer to a movement toward a certain “direction,” as opposed to “transformation.”
Example:
In addition, the preposition “to” is also essentially linked to the concept of indirect objects such as in the example below where “his son” is the indirect object:
Example:
To understand more on direct and indirect objects, you may refer to our article titled “Sent me vs. Sent to me” to get a clearer view.
Under the syntactic discipline, the use of “translate to” often demonstrates intransitivity in contrast to “translate into.”
In connection to using “translate to” within the language translation context, you can simply think of a linear direction of translating an expression to an equivalent expression in another language for easier recall.
Examples:
The same syntactic argument can be used in understanding why the next example is considered grammatically incorrect, again, if we are to use a highly pedantic, structural approach.
Example:
“Guten Tag” is a German greeting expression that simply means “good afternoon” in English. By the way, all nouns are capitalized in Germanic grammatical conventions.
So, I hope the capital letter “t” in “Tag” wasn’t an eyesore for you.
And speaking of capitalization, some specific rules are set by writing style guides regarding the capitalization of “into” in titles that might be interesting for you.
Using either “translate into” or “translate to” works just fine when…
Now that we have understood when to specifically choose “translate into” or “translate to,” knowing when these two expressions become interchangeable should fill the remaining gap in today’s inquiry.
The answer to this is quite easy, and that is, both expressions will work just fine when we talk about translating from a particular language “into” or “to” another language.
Both variants are typically used in cases like the following:
Examples:
Also, we have to note that casual or informal language use could meanwhile justify the usage of either “to” or “into” because we are not expected to adhere to strict grammatical conventions in such contexts.
As long as “meaning” is encoded and decoded without serious grammatical anomalies going on, then communication will still take place.
Three other related variations to “translate into” and “translate to”
Last but not least, let us also look into three other related variants to “translate into” and “translate to” to improve our linguistic flexibility.
Here are three other prepositions that may also appear after the verb “to translate”:
Translate “in”
Albeit less frequently used than both “translate into” and “translate to,” “translate in” you may also come across this word sequence from time to time.
The preposition “in” is commonly used to express the same meaning as “using,” which simply denotes instrumentality, medium, or means, such as in the phrases “spoken in English” or “drawn in pencil.”
Example:
The sentence above means that the subject does not use English as a means for translation anymore.
Thus, this may suggest that the subject must have either changed his medium of translation (maybe into French or Spanish) or has completely stopped offering translation services.
Translate “on”
Another variant that you might cross paths with is “translate on,” which is less frequently used than “translate in.”
In this word sequence, the verb “to translate” is often attached to a fixed prepositional phrase, such as “on TV,” “on your own,” “on the spot.”
Example:
You may also add a direct object right after “translate” to make your thought representation more accurate.
Example:
Translate “by”
Last in order is the phrase “translate by,” which should be the least of your worries because you wouldn’t encounter this word sequence as often as “translate in.”
But, just like “translate in,” “translate by” also has an instrumental function, just like the one shown in the example below, which is quite self-explanatory.
Example:
Frequently Asked Questions on “‘Translate into’ vs. ‘Translate to’”
What does “translate into” mean?
As a fixed phrasal verb, “translate into” means “to make something happen” or simply “to result in.” However, in the context of language translation, “translate into” means “to render a source language in a target language.”
What is a synonym for “translate into”?
In the context of language translation, we may either use “render into” or “interpret into” as close synonyms for “translate into.”
How do we use “translate” in a sentence?
“To translate” can be used as a transitive verb as in “to translate a Latin text into English” or an intransitive verb as in “‘jambo’ translates to ‘hello’.”
Conclusion
Most, if not all, function words like prepositions are a hard nut to crack. However, this is a natural linguistic event whether we like it or not.
Although this is the case, we have to be grateful for the flexibility of prepositions as well as the other closed-class types of words because, through them, we are able to whimsically recycle utterances to suit our linguistic needs
Hey fellow Linguaholics! It’s me, Marcel. I am the proud owner of linguaholic.com. Languages have always been my passion and I have studied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Sinology at the University of Zurich. It is my utmost pleasure to share with all of you guys what I know about languages and linguistics in general.