system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do translators deal with unavoidable puns?
gpt
This is one of the things that makes translation challenging and exciting. Not only do you need to know two languages, but you need to be a wordsmith with your target language. When encountering puns, we first have to determine if the humor is essential to the meaning of the passage. If not, we can just gloss over the pun and convey the overall meaning of that section in straight-forward language.

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If the humor is essential, than we have a couple of strategies. Is there a similar pun in the target language? If there isn't, then can we switch out some of the words to create a pun in the target language while still maintaining the feel of the original? Failing that, can we just replace it with a completely different pun that can still be humorous in this situation?

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Sometimes, though, the language pair you are working in can make puns easy to translate or neigh impossible. With so many cultural similarities and shared vocabulary, working between, say, French and English would be much easier. Working between Japanese and English, on the other hand, presents serious challenges, as the languages and cultures are drastically different. Ultimately, though, all languages are complex, organic creatures. There is no fail-safe strategy to translating puns, and it is something you really just need to approach creatively on a case-by-case basis.

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Edit: Added a sentence for clarification.