8 Translation Techniques, with Website Examples

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The eight translation techniques every website translator uses are borrowing, calque, literal translation, transposition, modulation, equivalence, adaptation and compensation. The first seven come from the classic model of Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet; compensation is a later, widely taught addition. Picking the right one for each sentence is most of the difference between a site that reads naturally and one that obviously went through a translation engine.

Key takeaways

• Techniques run from “close to the source” (borrowing, calque, literal) to “free” (equivalence, adaptation). Good website translation mixes both.
• Use direct techniques for product names, technical terms and plain instructions, and oblique techniques for headlines, calls to action, idioms and anything with a cultural reference.
• A glossary decides the borrowing and calque questions once, so they are not re-argued on every page.
• Machine translation mostly produces literal translation; human review is where transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation get applied.
• Keywords need research in each market. None of these techniques will find them for you.

Where these techniques come from

In 1958 Vinay and Darbelnet published Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais, which compared how French and English express the same ideas. They grouped translation procedures into two families (chapter reprinted in Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader):

• Direct translation covers borrowing, calque and literal translation. The target text follows the source closely.
• Oblique translation covers transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation. The translator changes grammar, viewpoint or even the image used, because a direct version would sound wrong or mean something else.

Linguists wrote the model for other linguists, yet it fits the everyday choices of anyone translating a website, an app or a store surprisingly well.

The 8 translation techniques, with website examples

1. Borrowing

Borrowing keeps a word from the source language unchanged. On a website, that means leaving “software”, “email”, “streaming”, “checkout” or your product name in English on a French or German page, because local readers use those words too.

It works for brand and product names, for technical terms the local market already uses in English, and for words with no settled local equivalent. The risk is overdoing it: a Spanish page full of English terms looks unfinished. Check how local competitors write the same term.

2. Calque

A calque translates a phrase word by word, so the target language gets a new expression with the source’s structure. “Skyscraper” became gratte-ciel in French and rascacielos in Spanish, both literally “scrape-sky”. In software, “mouse” and “cloud storage” have been calqued into many languages.

Use a calque only when it is already established. A calque invented for marketing copy usually sounds translated.

3. Literal translation

Literal translation is word-for-word translation that happens to be grammatical and natural in the target language. “Add to cart” becomes Spanish Añadir al carrito. “Free shipping on orders over 50 euros” becomes French Livraison gratuite dès 50 euros d’achat, which is close to literal and reads fine.

It suits clear, factual text such as specifications, instructions, legal notices and help articles, and it is what machine translation does best. The trap is a sentence that is grammatical but still unnatural. If a native speaker would not say it, switch to one of the oblique techniques.

4. Transposition

Transposition changes the grammatical category without changing the meaning, for example by turning a verb into a noun. English button text “Sign up” (verb) often becomes a noun in German: Registrierung or Anmeldung, or a verb phrase such as Jetzt registrieren. English “after checking out” may become French après validation de la commande (noun phrase).

It is most useful in UI labels, headings and short phrases, where the target language prefers a different structure.

5. Modulation

Modulation changes the point of view but keeps the meaning. English “Don’t forget your password” may read better in another language as the positive “Remember your password”. “Out of stock” can become “Temporarily unavailable” or “Back soon”, which some markets see as a softer and more natural message.

Reach for it in warnings, error messages, reminders and anywhere the literal version sounds harsh, negative or awkward in the target language.

6. Equivalence

Equivalence uses a completely different expression that describes the same situation. Idioms, proverbs and fixed phrases are the classic case: “It’s raining cats and dogs” is Il pleut des cordes in French (“it’s raining ropes”). “A piece of cake” might become un jeu d’enfant (“child’s play”) in French or pan comido (“eaten bread”) in Spanish.

You need it for any idiom or figure of speech in your copy, although the easier fix is to keep idioms out of source text meant for translation.

7. Adaptation

Adaptation replaces a cultural reference that does not exist, or means something different, in the target culture. A US page saying “perfect for your Fourth of July barbecue” adapted for the UK might refer to summer weekends instead. A “Black Friday” promotion may map to a different sales event in some markets. A baseball metaphor (“hit it out of the park”) may become a football one.

Marketing copy, campaigns, seasonal content and examples need it most. This is where translation turns into localization, and at the extreme end into transcreation.

8. Compensation

Compensation applies when an effect (a pun, a rhyme, a level of formality) cannot be kept in one place, so you recreate it somewhere else in the text. Say an English tagline is built on a pun that does not work in Italian. The translator drops the pun there but adds warmth or wordplay to the sub-headline, and the page keeps its playful tone overall.

It belongs in brand copy, where the tone of the whole page matters more than any single sentence.

Direct vs. oblique: quick reference

How to apply these techniques to a whole website

Applying the techniques consistently across hundreds of pages and several languages takes a process, not just knowledge of the terms.

Decide the “direct” questions once, in a glossary

Borrowing and calque decisions should not be left to each translator on each page. List your product names, feature names and industry terms, and record for each language whether the term stays in English (borrowing), uses an established local term, or is translated. A glossary turns those decisions into rules. Our guide to building a translation glossary walks through it.

Let machine translation do the literal work

Neural machine translation is strong at literal translation of clear sentences. Use it for the first draft of everything, especially long informational pages. Reviewers then skip the typing and spend their time on the oblique techniques, where machines are weaker.

Review where oblique techniques matter

Ask a fluent reviewer to go through, at minimum:

• the home page and main landing pages (headlines and taglines: equivalence, adaptation, compensation);
• navigation, buttons and forms (transposition);
• checkout, account and error messages (modulation);
• promotions and seasonal banners (adaptation).

Reviewing in context, on the real page, is much faster and catches more than reviewing a spreadsheet of strings, because the reviewer sees length, layout and meaning together. See our notes on post-editing machine translation.

Write source text that translates well

You can prevent many problems before translation starts:

• Keep sentences short and direct.
• Avoid idioms, puns and culture-bound jokes in content that will be translated at scale, or flag them for transcreation.
• Keep text out of images.
• Be consistent: call the same thing by the same name everywhere.

Beware false friends

False friends are words that look similar in two languages but mean different things. English “actual” is not French actuel (“current”); English “eventually” is not Spanish eventualmente (“possibly”); English “gift” is German Gift, which means “poison”. Machine translation usually handles these correctly in context, but a reviewer should know the common ones for each language pair.

Translate keywords with research

The eight techniques will not give you keywords. The literal translation of your English keyword may be a term nobody searches for. For each language, look up what people actually type (search tools, autocomplete, local competitors) and use those terms in titles, headings and meta descriptions. The multilingual SEO side of this also requires one URL per language and hreflang tags.

How ConveyThis supports these techniques

ConveyThis handles the mechanical parts so reviewers can focus on the techniques that need judgment:

• A machine translation first draft for your whole site in any of 210 languages.
• Glossary rules that record borrowing and calque decisions, so a term is either kept untranslated or always translated the same way.
• Translation memory, so an approved translation of a sentence is reused wherever it appears.
• A visual editor for changing any sentence in context on the live page, which is where transposition and modulation are easiest to judge.
• Team roles, so you can invite a native reviewer for each language.
• Automatic hreflang and translated meta titles and descriptions, so your localized keywords reach search engines.

You can read more about how ConveyThis approaches translation quality.

FAQ

What are the main translation techniques?

The classic model by Vinay and Darbelnet lists seven: borrowing, calque, literal translation, transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation. Compensation is often added as an eighth.

What is the difference between direct and oblique translation?

Direct translation (borrowing, calque, literal) keeps close to the source’s words and structure. Oblique translation (transposition, modulation, equivalence, adaptation) changes grammar, viewpoint or imagery so the result sounds natural.

Which translation technique is best for websites?

No single one. Use literal translation for factual content, borrowing for brand terms, transposition and modulation for UI text and messages, and equivalence or adaptation for marketing copy.

Is transcreation a translation technique?

Transcreation goes beyond adaptation: the message is re-created for the market, often by a copywriter. It is usually reserved for slogans, ads and headlines.

Can machine translation use these techniques?

Modern machine translation handles literal translation well and sometimes produces good transpositions or equivalents. Adaptation and compensation still need a human who knows the audience.

To try this workflow on your own site, create a ConveyThis account, translate the site, then review the pages that matter in the visual editor.