Collocations with the word «voice» and their translation problems

Abstract

Abstract. The choice of the word collocations in languages is more arbitrary than not. Why some languages say «at the
station,» while others «on the station,» is yet to be understood. Again, while some languages use certain collocations
with the words, the other languages do not recognize that usage. This leaves us with the blank space, or in best case, the
circumlocution when translating the phrases from one language into another.
In our study, we have examined the collocations of four different languages and their equivalents in the English
language. Arabic, Bosnian, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and English were compared in terms of the word «voice» and
its collocations. Italian, Portuguese, Spanish being three languages of the same – Latinfamily, andthe Bosnian language
and the Arabic language, which share a historical background were examined. The difficulties of translation due to the
various reasons and (di)similarities were discussed.