A low-key poll

This question is for people whose first language isn't English. Sometimes, a word pops up in your head in your native language, and you want to translate it accurately into English to fully convey your thought. While English usually has ways to express most ideas (in a far more wordy way), there are some cases where it fails completely to produce or even describe an exact equivalent, which is certainly frustrating. But the typical translations still fall into two categories: denotation (the literal meaning) and connotation (the sentiment). Which approach do you usually choose when selecting a word in English, and why? If you don't believe me and want an example, then here's one: "先輩".

Honestly I think this is sometimes independent of language translation. I often say things literally and get corrected by others indicating that though by combining each word's definitions what I say has one meaning but when interpreted by others (less literally minded people) it often means something else entirely.

I never considered this possible dichotomy between denotation and connotation. I learned that, ideally, a good translation should be as close as possible in both denotation and connotation to assure that the desired information relayed by a text is correctly translated - often, languages have multiple words with a similar denotation and varying connotations, so it's just a matter of picking the most appropriate one.

Though I should say: it isn't very natural to me for words in my mother language to pop in my head when I'm writing or speaking in English; they tend to be mostly in that language that I'm currently using.

As two side-notes, actually as I see it, English has a huge vocabulary (borrowed or not), and, when reading something with a more fancy vocabulary, most of the time I meet words that, alone, can convey things that my own would need a larger sentence to do the same. And that in your example's case, I'd probably just use Sempai, as there's no possible translation of that, being a very culturally specific term; the same way I wouldn't say 'messenger' instead of 'angel', or say 'chooser of the slain' instead of 'Valkyrie'.

May I ask what your first language is? I don't intend to judge, merely looking for more insight. If I guessed that it's German, how wrong would I be?

Sure, I see no problem in sharing that!

Unfortunately, you're very off the mark, though... it's Portuguese, lol.

Oh. That's interesting. I'll consider it. You may also write a DM to me for further discussion, if you like. I don't know how Portuguese compares to English and I sure like to know.

Uh... It's pretty incomparable, besides for some common cognates from Latin and Greek.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Like Moyreau, I strive to get both right. Which means sometimes I spend many minutes picking the best word out of a thesaurus, or even rewriting the phrase entirely because I can't get the desired effect.

I don't think this is something that only happens in a tertiary language, I think it's a normal part of writing in every language - thinking carefully through the word choice, checking words for hidden implied meanings in addition to the obvious ones and the like.

I actually think that translation "by denotation" is better. It is enriching. Different cultures might see the same thing differently and translating by meaning shows exactly what that thing, they have different views about, is. If there's a word that has negative connotations in one culture, but not necessarily in another, it informs the other culture of potential different point of view on a known phenomenon. Of course, when that option is impossible due to language and pacing limitations, then the translation by connotation becomes the second best choice. The second to worst choice is translation by explanation. And the worst of four is translation by approximation.

I'm English and play with a lot of non-English players. It doesn't really bother me which option they use as long as their intentions are clear and I can work out what action their characters are taking. However, I do assess how well they understand English from their posts as being English I tend to use English expressions in my own narratives that I realise may not translate well to a foreign language. e.g. 'it was raining cats and dogs' if taking literally could cause a lot of confusion to a non-english speaker.

Where I know that the player is a non-english speaker and is most likely using a translator to post I try to be more literal in my own text to minimise translation issues. e.g. 'it was raining heavily' rather than 'it was raining cats and dogs' and also by avoiding abbreviations and accented text such as 'I vant ta be halone'

I deal a lot with English and French, and the general approach that I've been taught is to try to capture the meaning, rather than focus on the specifics. (And I'm bad at this, lol!)

A good example is a slogan from a dairy producer for milk. On the packaging, there's the phrase, Que du bon, which in English translates to something like, Only good things, but if you try and do it literally from French, it's, What of the good. It doesn't work, and neither denotation nor connotation is suitable.

Translation is as much an art as it is a technical process. This is a great question, by the way. Especially for this hobby, where the majority of available content is only available in English and often produced in North America.

I wouldn't be so sure about it. At least Scandinavia, Spain and Germany have active scenes and products, tha latter since the 70ies, but don't seem to see the need of translate it to english. Or having different tastes.

So, this may seem true for GB and USA, but not necessarily for the non-english countries.