'Translate' is Latin for 'carry across' — from 'transferre.' Meaning ferried between languages.
To express the sense of words or text in another language; to convert from one form, medium, or state to another.
From Middle English 'translaten,' from Latin 'trānslātus,' the irregular past participle of 'trānsferre' (to carry across, to transfer), from 'trāns-' (across) + 'ferre' (to carry, to bear). The past participle 'trānslātus' comes from a suppletive paradigm — 'ferre' borrowed its past participle from 'tollere/lātum' (to lift/carried). The metaphor is vivid: to translate is to carry meaning across from one
English 'translate' and French 'traduire' both mean 'to translate' but use different Latin verbs — 'translate' from 'trānsferre' (carry across) and 'traduire' from 'trādūcere' (lead across). German calqued the Latin: 'übersetzen' = 'über' (over/across) + 'setzen' (to set/place). Russian 'перевести' (perevesti) = 'пере' (across) + 'вести' (to lead). Every major European language independently chose the metaphor of 'carrying/leading across' for translation — a remarkable conceptual convergence.