What is the difference between “translation” and “transliteration”?
When a non-Hebrew word or phrase has a Hebrew equivalent, you translate it. When there is not a Hebrew equivalent for a non-Hebrew word, you must transliterate it. Translation is by meaning, transliteration is by sound. Most of the Bible Codes software products now have English-Hebrew dictionaries, where you can type in a word in English, and have the Hebrew translation appear in the search box. However, the names of city, people, and other words that people commonly search for, often have no Hebrew equivalent. It is then necessary to transliterate. Transliteration is not an exact science, but usually you can narrow it down to 2-3 possibilities, and your best bet is to search for all three. The idea behind transliteration is to take the pronunciation of the non-Hebrew word, and make it phonetically match the Hebrew spelling.
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