Tercüme

Tercüme is the process and product of converting written text from one language into another while preserving meaning, style, and cultural nuances. In Turkish usage, the term can refer to both the act of translating and the resulting translation. It encompasses not only word-for-word rendering but the comprehension of intent, tone, and audience.

While often associated with written text, tercüme can apply to various media, including technical manuals, legal documents, literary works, websites, and software localization. In Turkish, there is a distinction sometimes made between tercüme (often for written texts) and çeviri (a more general term for translation); however, both terms are commonly used and overlapping.

Types of tercüme include literary translation, technical translation, legal translation, medical translation, and audiovisual translation such as subtitles and dubbing. The process typically involves analysis of the source text, terminology research, drafting the translation, and revision. Tools such as glossary databases and translation memory systems, and, increasingly, machine translation with post-editing, are used to improve consistency and efficiency.

Quality in tercüme is judged by accuracy, readability, and fidelity to the source intent, as well as consideration of audience and purpose. Professional standards emphasize ethics, confidentiality, and appropriate attribution. The field intersects with localization, cross-cultural communication, and translation studies, and continues to evolve with technology and globalization.