Zareh Darakjian Ph.D. Sep 28, 2010:

Question Of course, the question that I asked some 5 years ago, has no good answer:

Do we translated what the original intends to say, or do we translate what the original actually says, even though it is not very likely to be the case. I don't have a satisfactory answer to this. This happens quite often, especially in scientific translations. Your help in finding the answer to this question is much appreciated.

Zareh Darakjian Ph.D. Sep 28, 2010:

Not in defense of my answer Hi to all who have been very kind to help.

I am not trying to defend my answer. I could very well be wrong.
I distingusish the following cases:

1) A Polysaccharide is a huge molecule consisteing of amsller units called monosacharides. In some of the polysaccharides, there are branihings in these chains. If that's what is meant (which is the most common situation) then my answer is correct. Now, we know that that's not what we gather from the grammatical construction of the sentence.

Two cases:

Either the original is not written in a correct grammatical way and in fact the branching applies to the polysaccharide chain and not the glycans), then my answer is the translation of the ** intended ** meaning of the sentence, and not as it stands...

Or

The branching is that of the glycans, in which case Karla's answer is the correct one... while it may be possible that this latter is the case, I have not encountered ** branched glycan ** usage before, even though , I would assume it has been used may be by some...

K Donnelly Sep 28, 2010:

Hi Joseph. Don't worry about it. I understand that the terminology is very difficult. If I answer another question of yours in the future, I'll try to provide a better explanation of the meaning behind the terms. -Karla

Joseph Tein (asker) Sep 28, 2010:

Forgive my ignorance ... again Hi 'K' ... please understand that I was groping in the dark. Completely ... like my blind dachshund trying to find his way around the house and missing the door by half an inch ... and what may seem plain and obvious to you is still an enormous confusion to me. I was trying to fit the word "chains" in there somewhere, and it wasn't/isn't obvious to me that my solution is equivalent to your answer! Really, I don't know what 'chains' are in chemistry ... the source might as well have talked about 'unbranched neckties' and I wouldn't know the difference. Thanks for trying to enlighten me, and apologies for my ignorance!

K Donnelly Sep 28, 2010:

I understand your hesitation about choosing between the two answers. However, what you say you have written in your document "a polysaccharide composed of glycosaminoglycans with unbranched chains" is a basically my response "a polycaccharide consisting of unbranched glycosaminoglycans" (unbranched modifying the noun glycosaminoglycans) so I cannot really understand your final decision...

Joseph Tein (asker) Sep 28, 2010:

Can't decide! Even with the two of you experts in chemistry, and each with one Agree, I didn't know which version is more correct. For all I know, they're both valid. I'm still abysmally ignorant of chemical concepts and terminology. Here is the phrase I came up with:

"Hyaluronic acid is a polysaccharide composed of glycosaminoglycans with unbranched chains which is widely found in connective tissue; it plays an especially important role in tissue repair ... "

No complaints from the client -- which I hope means this was correct, but it's not a definite sign of the accuracy of the translation.