Home   Blog   What does a better lyrics translation need?

What does a better lyrics translation need?

By: Sana Shabbir Posted on Tue, 04-08-2015

With the closer fusion of cultures across the world, people are getting to touch more corners of other cultures, including music. Rhythms are not enough already; they want to know deeper meanings of songs. You can find many people asking for help translating a song to their languages, answers are vary even far away which is an interesting phenomenon. You can say that people have different attitudes towards arts. But you also have to admit, that the song writer must have only one explanation to his or her song. So, it leads us to the question that how to do a better translation for a song, a poem or a proverb?

Facing a case of a song, you have to find a way to express the original meaning of the lyrics to adapt it to the target audiences. In the specific case of a song, we must find a way to express the original meaning of the lyrics while adapting it to what is often a context complete opposite the original, which is where cultural or historical references of our target audience come into play. There are many instances of songs that lose their meaning or part so greatly from their original lyrics that they end up sounding like totally different songs. And many other songs which are popular in languages other than English end up not having the same sensitivity.

When you are trying to translate a song, we can mention the song’s artistic intention, its identity, so to speak, the context it plays out in, and, sometimes, much as we’d like to avoid it, forgetting about the previous tip and translating literally in order to favor the melody and phrasing. In order to avoid this last point it is recommended that the person translating have knowledge of music, or that the person translating a book or poem also be a writer. We’re not talking about theoretical musical knowledge, but rather knowledge of musical genres, melodies and rhythms, not just contemporary but of all periods.

Translating lyrics can be really challenging, but if we follow certain specific guidelines such as those mentioned above, it could be very pleasing.

Related Blogs

Top 10 Translation Companies in Colorado

Colorado is said to be one of the best places to do business because the business environment is very friendly

Read More
What is Transcreation? How Is It Different from Translation?

The global marketplace has become an attractive place for brands and businesses, where they strive to create a presence of

Read More
What is AutoCAD?

CAD, or computer-aided design and drafting (CADD), is the use of computer technology for design and design documentation. CAD software

Read More
12 Effective Tips for Doing Business in Iran

Many global companies, foreign governments and Iranian are hoping to see an increase in investment in Iran after declaring the

Read More
AI Transcription in Healthcare: Is That Impactful?

Artificial intelligence has taken a big space in almost every industry. There is also a widespread acceptance that AI is

Read More
Four Tricks For Global Client Persuasion

Persuasion is all about manipulating other people behavior. At first it might sound immoral but it doesn’t have to be.

Read More
Innovative Ideas And Its Marketing

Now days everyone is searching for good ideas for their company they wanted to be more creative, they wanted to

Read More
Internet Marketing Content Translation Services

Technology has now much diverse roots in this age of development. Now it is not wrong to say, that you

Read More
Why Should You Localize Your FAQ?

Localization is the practice of altering the functional properties of a product and also its characteristics. This is easily done

Read More

© Copyright 2026 MarsTranslation