OVERCOMING CHALLENGES IN THE TRANSLATION OF MEDICAL TEXTS FROM ENGLISH AND GERMAN INTO UKRAINIAN

Abstract

The article examines the urgent issue of translating medical texts as an important component of professional communication in the healthcare sector. The authors emphasize that in the modern world, specialized medical discourse plays a crucial role in ensuring the accurate transmission of professional information between doctors, pharmacists, researchers, medical personnel, and patients. Medical terminology is one of the oldest specialized lexical systems; however, it is constantly changing under the influence of scientific progress, which creates additional challenges for translators. The current state of medicine shows that English and German dominate medical scientific literature; therefore, translation into Ukrainian becomes particularly relevant in the context of clinical practice, pharmaceutical activities, and public health communication. Thus, a translator of medical texts must possess not only a high level of linguistic competence but also a strong command of medical terminology and its structural features. The article states that medical texts vary in typology depending on their communicative purpose. The following groups are distinguished: scientific texts (monographs, dissertations, articles), popular science publications, professional medical documentation (patient records, medical certificates), and pharmaceutical texts, in particular, package inserts for medicinal products. Package leaflets constitute the main focus of translation work, as they are intended both for professionals and for a lay audience. This dual addressee requires translators to select linguistic means that ensure not only precision but also accessibility and clarity of information. The authors underline that translating medical package inserts is associated with increased responsibility because any error may negatively affect the patient’s health. Therefore, it is essential to ensure the accuracy of information concerning dosage, contraindications, side effects, and drug interactions. The researchers set the aim to analyze the peculiarities of translating package inserts from English and German into Ukrainian, to trace the use of lexical and grammatical transformations, and to assess the adequacy of translation based on a comparative analysis of the original and target texts.