Another issue for translations is that some languages lack the vocabulary of the other language. For example, the Japanese have many words they have taken from English because these words did not exist in Japanese. Sexual words are especially problematic as they are often unknown in the population. No one talks or writes about sexuality explicitly!

Thank you Prof. Jane Elizabeth Thomas for your insightful comment! Indeed, the lack of equivalent vocabulary in one language compared to another is a significant challenge in translation. As you mentioned with Japanese, borrowing terms from other languages often becomes a practical solution, much like how the Arabic language adapts terms such as "trend." The issue you raised about sexual vocabulary highlights how cultural factors influence language development and usage. In Arabic, similar challenges exist, where certain concepts are either avoided due to cultural sensitivities or lack precise equivalents. This further emphasizes the dynamic interplay between language, culture, and societal norms in shaping vocabulary and translation practices.

Dear Doctor

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Lexical vs. Dictionary Databases

• June 2005
• Conference: COMPLEX 2005
• At: Budapest, Hungary
• By Maarten Janssen

[Conclusion Although there are many ways in which the design of lexical databases, or at least the MorDebe database, resembles the design of dictionary databases, this article shows that there are points in which they differ, due to their different purposes. Firstly, where dictionary databases have no real need for inflected word-form, they are crucial to the set-up of a lexical database. Secondly, where the focus in dictionary database is on selection to preserve compactness, consistency, and correctness, the emphasis in lexical databases is more on completeness and coverage. And thirdly, where lemma separation is almost exclusively governed by semantic issues in dictionary databases, it is largely driven by formal considerations in the MorDebe design. All three of these differences lead to an increased amount of data in the LDB with respect to the dictionary database. This means that where the dictionary can still be browsed, MorDebe can only be used via search queries. On the other hand, where the dictionary can only be accessed via the lemma, MorDebe can be accessed via any word-form.]

بروبليم

The problem with the meaning of a word is communicative and cultural, i. e. we are not sure that the statement, "You are a genius" means literally "smart"; it might be taken to ironically mean " stupid".