Words in Context



There are many complexities in translation; not least the fact that words change their meaning according to the context. Nataly Kelly, co-author of the excellent Found in Translation, has just posted an excellent blog post which explores the way in which some common English words have multiple senses according to the context in which we find them.

This infographic captures the issue wonderfully.

Words with Multiple Meanings

Though the example is from English, the same is actually true of every language, including Greek and Hebrew; the meaning of a word is determined by its context. This is why it is impossible to always translate a word or phrase in the Bible by the same word or phrase in English (or any other language for that matter). Languages just don’t work like that.