Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language — the source text — and the production of a new, equivalent text in another language — called the target text, or the translation.

Traditionally, translation has been a human activity, although attempts have been made to automate and computerise the translation of natural language texts — machine translation — or to use computers as an aid to translation — computer-assisted translation.

The goal of translation is to establish a relationship of equivalence and intent between the source and the target texts (that is to say to ensure that both texts communicate the same message), while taking into account a number of constraints. These constraints include context, the rules of grammar of the source language, its writing conventions, its idioms and the like.

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