Translation

[Travis_R]

What is lost in the translation to english in such works as Faust, Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina?
All these books are on my reading list, however none have the native language of English. Would I be gaining anything by reading these works in English, or do the translations not compare?

[kiki1982]

I haven't read any of them, but I have read a number of German and French works. I think that mainly dialogues do not work translated in English.

The lyrical structure of German, is well translated, can work very well in descriptions, but when people start talking I find it goes in such an odd way! Also the other way round: Jane Eyre in German... As soon as Jane starts talking to Rochester :lol:, forget it... Brontë's descriptions though I find are possibly as good or better even in German. Faust has an additional problem in that it is written in verses. Either you take a translation that does not rime, or you take one that does. If you take on that does not, then you can have a very strange reading experience, devoid of any rhythm whatsoever. If you take a riming one, then you might have certain bits of trext badly translated due to rhythm requirements and rime... It is hard...

French I find very difficult to do, although if the translator does not try to anglicise too much, then it can work as the structures and vocabularies of both languages are much the same...
Mainly French humour if difficult to translate to English. Mainly it is just the intonation you are used to as a French speaker that you hear inside your head and that makes you laugh. Or the melodrama might get to you... It is what you do not have in English, at least not in the same way. Although, if the translator is good, he/she could bring that across... Intonation would translate into a particular word rather than nothing but experience of the reader in the original French. Descriptions I don't find have the same feel as English have, but that is probably because they are different in what they focus on... I don't know why, it just is. I find French very dry, like their acting. One has to add to it in his own imagination, like in a French film the music/silence makes up the greatest amount of emotion. You can just not do that in English, because an English sentence has adverbs to express feelings with. .

I am learning Russian and people talk in such a direct, almost rude way if translated literally. I am not nearly far enough to read Anne Karenina, but I'll start on children's books soon ;). Although I have read some stories of Pushkin, translated by I find a very good translator who had studied the whole work of that man, I would prefer to read him in Russian, because I think it offers a different feel.

Although I think English is still the most versatile language to translate into if well done.

I hope I didn't confuse you more ;).

[Madame X]

Also the other way round: Jane Eyre in German... As soon as Jane starts talking to Rochester :lol:, forget it...

Yep, just try to imagine Shakespeare in Dutch and it’ll give you an idea of some of the inevitable pitfalls of translated literature. In fact, that’s probably why so many people here would happily prefer to take a year or two to learn, for example, some Russian before attempting that big book about Karenin’s wife. :p

[Red-Headed]

What is lost in the translation to english in such works as Faust, Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina?
All these books are on my reading list, however none have the native language of English. Would I be gaining anything by reading these works in English, or do the translations not compare?

I've read all of those mentioned in translation. In fact I have read at least four translations of Crime & Punishment, including the Garnett one. I tend to prefer more modern translations than older ones (especialy with Dostoyevsky). It is always a difficult question as translation is more of an art form than anything else. Languages change over time & so does semiotic signification. E.V. Rieu's translation of the Iliad supposedly launched Penguin paperbacks. I have always found it a little heavy going. On the other hand the Lattimore translation seems full of energy & I have always loved it. Not being fluent in Ancient Greek it is difficult to be completely objective.

[Red-Headed]

Although I think English is still the most versatile language to translate into if well done.

Grammatically English is one of the simplest languages in the world, unfortunately English has more words than almost any other language & twice as many as some. This means English has more nuances in describing or expressing concepts. This can be very confusing to non-English speakers though.

[Red-Headed]

Yep, just try to imagine Shakespeare in Dutch and it’ll give you an idea of some of the inevitable pitfalls of translated literature.

Remember that Elizabethan/Jacobean English is alien to most native English speakers as well. Shakespeare also uses some dialect words peculiar to the English Midlands. I was born not far from where Shakespeare originally lived & can recognise many of these.

Furthermore many English Midland & Mercian pronunciations would be different to modern Received Pronunciation. Most of the vowels would be flatter & words such as 'bath' & 'path' would be pronounced with the same 'a' as in 'cat' or 'bat'. The diphthong 'ea' would have been pronounced to rhyme with 'hay'. So the words 'sea', 'pea', 'meat' & 'beat' would have sounded like 'say', 'pay', 'mate', & 'bait'. This is still quite common in Black Country dialects & I have heard it quite a bit in some parts of the Midlands.

It has often been said that some of the sonnets don't always rhyme that well. If you know how Shakespeare would have sounded like speaking you can hear the rhymes.

[mal4mac]

I haven't read any of them, but I have read a number of German and French works. I think that mainly dialogues do not work translated in English.


I find the Maude translations of Tolstoy work well for me, including the dialogues. Tolstoy praised these translations, and no modern translator can say that! I find Pevear & V rather stilted. I just borrowed their translation of Tolstoy's shorter works from the library and compared them directly to Maude. I *much* prefer Maude.

Red-head - which modern translation of C&P do you prefer? There are several, and they are quite different...

I've tried a handful of translations of the Iliad and they are *all* heavy going. I managed, at least, to get through Rieu. There's a lot to be said for plain prose! Just to be Mr Pedantic for the moment, it was Rieu's translation of the *Odyssey* that launched Penguin. That's also worth reading, and is much easier going than the Iliad. If you want something Greek that isn't plodding, try Ted Hughes' translation of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. Remarkable! (You should do the hard slog through Homer first though...)

[kiki1982]

Yep, just try to imagine Shakespeare in Dutch and it’ll give you an idea of some of the inevitable pitfalls of translated literature. In fact, that’s probably why so many people here would happily prefer to take a year or two to learn, for example, some Russian before attempting that big book about Karenin’s wife. :p

:lol: I once went to Shakespeare's The Tempest by one of the leading amateur companies in Belgium (pretty good)... Insufferable! I'd much rather struggle and call a few people who know the word I am looking for than read him in Dutch... That said I start to get him better the more older English I read. The same for Chaucer, who is absolutely hilarious! You can just hear Austen in that, and yet they are so many years/centuries apart!

@Red-Headed: That's what I meant. Obviously I used a word that was rather ambiguous ;).

[Red-Headed]

I find the Maude translations of Tolstoy work well for me, including the dialogues.

I have a beautiful hardback edition (Guild Publishing) of Maude's War & Peace in mint condition that I picked up for a couple of quid in a second-hand shop a few years ago. It is printed on India paper complete with all of the sketch maps. I think it isn't bad as a translation but I preferred the translation by Rosemary Edmonds.


Red-head - which modern translation of C&P do you prefer? There are several, and they are quite different...

I like the David Magarshack & David McDuff translations the best.


I've tried a handful of translations of the Iliad and they are *all* heavy going. I managed, at least, to get through Rieu. There's a lot to be said for plain prose! Just to be Mr Pedantic for the moment, it was Rieu's translation of the *Odyssey* that launched Penguin. That's also worth reading, and is much easier going than the Iliad. If you want something Greek that isn't plodding, try Ted Hughes' translation of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. Remarkable! (You should do the hard slog through Homer first though...)

Yes, sorry, you are quite correct about the Odyssey & Penguin books. I have read a few translations of that, the only one I still own is Walter Shrewings (Oxford World Classics). I do recommend the Lattimore Iliad though. I have both seen & read Hughes' Oedipus Rex.

[OrphanPip]

Furthermore many English Midland & Mercian pronunciations would be different to modern Received Pronunciation. Most of the vowels would be flatter & words such as 'bath' & 'path' would be pronounced with the same 'a' as in 'cat' or 'bat'.

This made me giggle a little, that's how North Americans would pronounce it anyway. It took me a moment to register what you were trying to say.

[Red-Headed]

:The same for Chaucer, who is absolutely hilarious! You can just hear Austen in that, and yet they are so many years/centuries apart!

Chaucer is difficult for modern English speakers because of the huge change in English between about 1400 & the turn of the 16th century. Many subjunctives & inflectives disappeared along with many of Chaucer's antiquated 3rd person present indicatives like 'he fyndeth'. Strangely he uses modern dialect forms like 'he fyndes' (he finds) for some of his characters to portray regional dialect. It is interesting that what was an odd dialect to Chaucer is now more or less standard English.


@Red-Headed: That's what I meant. Obviously I used a word that was rather ambiguous ;).

Easily done in English! ;)

[Helga]

I think there is always something lost in translations but I prefer reading them than not to read the books at all. I read in (besides my language) English and Danish and I'm studying German for the sole purpose to read the way the books were written(wish I was better at it though)... don't think I'll go for Russian though. but I agree that Maude is very good for Tolstoy...

[Red-Headed]

This made me giggle a little, that's how North Americans would pronounce it anyway. It took me a moment to register what you were trying to say.

Yes, there was an anticipatory vowel modification shift around the time of Chancery English. Most English north of the Watford Gap (including myself) still use the flatter vowel sounds of Old English. The American accent had its origins in the East Midlands & West Country dialects according to Webster's Dictionary. I tend to agree with them. North of the Mercian area the Frisian descended English is heavily influenced by Danish. Some Danish words are still used in dialect like 'bairn' for child. Black Country & other Midlands dialects are the oldest dialects in the country & are the closest to Anglo-Saxon.

[Annamariah]

As a translator-to-be, I have to defend translations :D

A translation is always an adaptation, the translator's interpretation of the original text. Because no two languages are the same, vocabularies don't match completely, each word has different connotations and so on, something is always lost.

Still I think that you get much more out of a good translation than you get from the original if you're language skills aren't that good. For example, my English is so good that I can feel a book in English almost the same as a native speaker (the differences would be mostly because of a different cultural background, but that would affect reading a translation too), whereas my Swedish isn't quite on that level. I can read a book in Swedish and understand it, but I'll always miss something because I'm not familiar enough with all the nuances of the language and all the connotations of the words.

[Travis_R]

Are Garnett's translations any good? My War and Peace is translated by her and I was wondering how she compares.

[kiki1982]

I agree that one should understand well enough what is being said, otherwise it is totally futile to try to understand.

But...

From personal experience I have learned that the more you read the more you understand what the writer is trying to tell you even if you don't understand totally what is said in the sentence. It is very odd. The first time it happened with Hugo I was farely amazed, but my feelings as they occurred were quite right upon checking in the dictionary what that one word meant. Strange.

All jobs have quacks and specialists ;).

[Annamariah]

From personal experience I have learned that the more you read the more you understand what the writer is trying to tell you even if you don't understand totally what is said in the sentence. It is very odd. The first time it happened with Hugo I was farely amazed, but my feelings as they occurred were quite right upon checking in the dictionary what that one word meant. Strange.

Often the meaning of a strange word can be guessed correctly from the context, at least vaguely (for example whether it's a positive or a negative word). Also reading in a foreign language is the best way to learn it properly, as it expands your vocabulary and the more you read, the more you get "in" to the language. In Finnish we talk about "kielikorva", "language ear" that tells you how something should be said even if you can't remember why it is so.

So I'm not at all opposed to reading in foreign languages, on the contrary. But if we're talking about a certain book you want to read and don't know whether you'd get more out of the original or the translation, I'd opt for a good translation, if there's one available. (Unless, of course, your knowledge of the original language is comprehensive.)

[Red-Headed]

Are Garnett's translations any good? My War and Peace is translated by her and I was wondering how she compares.

Constance Garnett (1861-1946) translated a lot of Russian novels & her translations bought Russian authors like Dostoyevsky, Turgenev & Herzen to the attention of the English speaking world. She had the dubious distinction of being taught Russian by such infamous emigrés as the nihilist & terrorist Sergey Kravchinsky inter alia (well, until he was mysteriously run over by a train in London). I personally think her translations have dated & tend to agree with those that think that some of them are banal or prudish. I was not that impressed with her translation of The Brothers Karamazov but I quite liked her translation of Chekhov's The Steppe. I've actually compared her translation of War & Peace to the Maude & Edmonds translations. I prefer the Edmonds to Maude & both are better than Garnett's translation in my opinion. Although I believe that Edmonds based many of her translations on Garnett's originals.

[mal4mac]

Are Garnett's translations any good? My War and Peace is translated by her and I was wondering how she compares.

She has a good reputation. Every serious critic of Russian literature in English usually starts by comparing her translations to others - and she usually comes well out of so such comparisons. You will not look stupid saying you are reading the Garnett translation at a literary function! So the question you need to ask is - is she "good for you". Do you like her fluent Edwardian English? Or do you want modern American literalism? (Pevear & V, for instance...)

If, like me, you are happy reading Dickens and Roth then you can only find out if Garnett is "for you" by reading (say) fifty pages, or so. The translation shouldn't grate at all. It should be like reading the best English author of that period. That's what it feels like, to me, when I read the Maude translation.

The Maudes tried to persuade Garnett to work with them, but she was happier going it alone. I read Garnett's Anna Karenina, and it was good, but I preferred the style of Maude's War & Peace. But I'd have no hesitation in reading Garnett's Chekhov and Dostoevsky - the Maudes didn't translate those authors!

I'd go ahead with Garnett, and if you dislike her style try Maude (You can buy the Wordsworth classics Maude translations for £1.99 - if you get through Garnett's W&P why not do the reverse of what I did and read the Maude Anna Karenina?) If you like Garnett, without reservation, then you are set up for reading Dostoevsky and Chekhov without breaking the bank!

I haven't read Edmonds' version, but a lot of people seem to like it:

http://ask.metafilter.com/22511/Best-War-and-Peace-English-edition

I've just read Tolstoy's Shorter Works in the Maude translation and (like Tolstoy) I don't see how Maude can be bettered. "The Cossacks" is the best translation I've ever read.

[Red-Headed]

I've just read Tolstoy's Shorter Works in the Maude translation and (like Tolstoy) I don't see how Maude can be bettered. "The Cossacks" is the best translation I've ever read.

Have you ever read any of Ronald Wilks' translations of Tolstoy's short stories?


*One slight thing that irritates me about the Maude War & Peace is that they translate Prince Andrei (Bolkonsky) as Prince Andrew. I believe that Andrei was his given name in the original novel. This seems to me like translating common English names like David or John into their original Hebrew forms if a novel was translated into Hebrew with two of the main protagonists being English people called David & John. Or if you were called 'David' calling yourself 'Daffyd' if you went to live in Wales.

[mal4mac]

Have you ever read any of Ronald Wilks' translations of Tolstoy's short stories?


No.



*One slight thing that irritates me about the Maude War & Peace is that they translate Prince Andrei (Bolkonsky) as Prince Andrew. I believe that Andrei was his given name in the original novel. This seems to me like translating common English names like David or John into their original Hebrew forms if a novel was translated into Hebrew with two of the main protagonists being English people called David & John. Or if you were called 'David' calling yourself 'Daffyd' if you went to live in Wales.

That seems to be going slightly too far, but I find it more comforting than irritating! It indicates that they have bent over backwards in producing a text that an English common reader will find transparent.

The most serious criticism of the Maudes I've read is that they sometimes lose Tolstoy's bizarre sense of humour & some detail. For instance, according to the Oxford Guide, Napoleon emerging from his toilette is pictured "snorting and grunting" with hair "wet and tangled". That gives an impression of someone beastly, but loses the equine connotations - the Russian word translated into "snort" actually is better expressed as "horse-snort" or (in English!) perhaps "whinny and snort", and "hair" is better translated as "forelock". But all translations have flaws, you just have to ask yourself if the benefits outweigh the flaws...

Thinking about this again -- perhaps the comparison of Napoleon to a horse would make him look too good in the eyes of the average British reader -- we tend to idealise animals, horses in particular! So perhaps the Maudes were actually producing a better translation by losing the "nice horsy" connotations and just keeping the "beastly" indications. Also the Oxford Guide suggested the "horsy" translation was funnier than the Maude translation -- I didn't see that at all! Neither were funny... although both were atmospheric...

Who'd be a translator? :)

[Red-Headed]

The most serious criticism of the Maudes I've read is that they sometimes lose Tolstoy's bizarre sense of humour & some detail.

Which is probably why I preferred Edmonds.


Who'd be a translator? :)

Yeah, it's definitely an art form!

[kiki1982]

The horse-comparison is not just fun, it is also a (at least) two-fold symbolic meaning. I often find that lacking in translations. I believe that translators are not left with enough time to explore the work they are doing in all their facets, and this is an illustration of it.

The horse-comparison of Napoleon could have a first meaning in that French Thoroughbreds were deemed aristocratic and at the start of the Revolution had been banned out of use. Napoleon rode mainly Arabians himself, but he, being somewhat of a French Thoroughbred (symbol of aristocracy, hypocritical towards the Revolution) to a certain extent, could be seen as one who has re-entered the public domain, in spite of the Revolution. Naturally, because he decided to become new aristocracy by declaring himself emperor and living in a palace, lavishly.

On he other hand, there is a more general connotation with horses as symbols of wilde hedonistic living. We can certainly call Napoleon that. Without thinking, led by pride and blinded by former vistories, Napoleon led his men into Russia, in summer-uniforms, without any winter clorhing and not thinking of his heavy artillery that would sink into the mud of the summer. The Russians lured them as far as Moscow, but left them without food, so that when the winter came, the whole army was decimated by just hunger and cold. In one of the Baltic states (I have forgotten which one), there were heeps of dead bodies at the gate of the capital because those soldiers were exhausted and could take no more.

So, in comparing Napoleon with a horse, Tolstoy actually expressed an implicit judgment about Napoleon as hypocrite and wild impulsive person.

Maybe the beastly connotation was kept by the translator you mentioned, Mal4mac, but the real message was not taken care of.

I also have doubts about translations that translate names of all things. Doing that is lifting the story out of its cultural context. Things like money, measurements (if appropriate) and names should always be kept. Money because otherwise it lifts the story equally out of context: pounds are not the same as French francs, ginnies, shillings or pence. If there is a certain system it should be explained so the reader has an idea how much it is worth in his own money. If measurements are addressed, they should be explained equally, and left in the text with their original names. Names should always be kept. For things like special clothing (older or from a different country), measurements and money there is usually the practice of putting the word in italic.

[Red-Headed]

The horse-comparison is not just fun, it is also a (at least) two-fold symbolic meaning. I often find that lacking in translations. I believe that translators are not left with enough time to explore the work they are doing in all their facets, and this is an illustration of it.

The horse-comparison of Napoleon could have a first meaning in that French Thoroughbreds were deemed aristocratic and at the start of the Revolution had been banned out of use. Napoleon rode mainly Arabians himself, but he, being somewhat of a French Thoroughbred (symbol of aristocracy, hypocritical towards the Revolution) to a certain extent, could be seen as one who has re-entered the public domain, in spite of the Revolution. Naturally, because he decided to become new aristocracy by declaring himself emperor and living in a palace, lavishly.



I think that there is always a danger of unintentional hermeneutics when reading translations. It is a science & an art form to convey different semiospheres to the reader.

[Anna_MAlkovych]

Well can't talk about everything, but I do can about Russian books for instance Chekhov – I’ve never seen a good translation of his books – it was not bad. But as a person who lived Taganrog for many years, I can say it lacked the essence, the atmosphere. But anyway it is better than nothing. I remember my shock when I first found one English and then one Russian phrase that even after translated by meaning had no meaning, it was connected with the thing that in English one no is – no, but two – yes, while in Russian one, two or two thousand nos- is still no, there really are some untranslatable ones.

[kiki1982]

I think that there is always a danger of unintentional hermeneutics when reading translations. It is a science & an art form to convey different semiospheres to the reader.

I believe it is possible in the vast amount of cases to bring the message across. There are only a limited amount of cases, I believe, where comparisons are culturally bound and where some two-fold/more-fold meanings might have to be abandoned because they make no sense in the culture of the language into which the work is translated. Although I have to admit that translating into Dutch is a nightmare. Very por language, unless one starts to use extremely old words.

On the other hand, I have often the impression that translators have indeed the skills to understand the sentences and maybe the connotations of the words they are translating, but have no clue about literature and its messages (the significance) in general. At least that is so with two translators I know. They have been taught how to translate the words and at best the atmosphere, but have not been taught the consequences of their choices, as illustrated with Tolstoy's Napoleon. They would argue that it does not matter. It matters a great deal in this, but hey, what do simple readers know? There was no reason for the translator to take that connotation away as it is also present in English culture. It was a failure to translate the thing that is most important in a work of literature... A message.

@Anna_MAlkovych:

I couldn't make out what you meant, but can you explain further? In which piece of his was this?

[Red-Headed]

I believe it is possible in the vast amount of cases to bring the message across. There are only a limited amount of cases, I believe, where comparisons are culturally bound and where some two-fold/more-fold meanings might have to be abandoned because they make no sense in the culture of the language into which the work is translated.

I should imagine you can translate the basic meaning but from a semiotic viewpoint you will always have connotation, denotation & ideo-mythology to deal with.


Although I have to admit that translating into Dutch is a nightmare. Very por language, unless one starts to use extremely old words.

That's interesting. English (Anglo-Saxon) is descended from a form of Frisian. Frisian dialects are still found in Holland & Germany I believe. There is some commonality with many English Midland's dialects.


It was a failure to translate the thing that is most important in a work of literature... A message.

I think that is the problem with translating signifieds & signifiers.

[Anna_MAlkovych]

kiki1982, maybe I explained not well enough, the thing with nos - was nowhere it was an example of untranslatable cases, there is a well known phrase - If nobody is perfect, then hello my name is nobody. I once tried to translate in Russian and couldn't - well the translation was made but it had to be commented - explaining English grammar peculiarities - It was like this in Russian: если никто не идеален, тогда я никто, but it has no sense at if make word by word translation again it’ll be - if nobody is not perfect, then I am nobody, it is like saying if Jane is not perfect, then I am Jane, it is clearly not the thing meant in the original. Well I found some way to make it, but it came out more optimistic and not that sarcastic - Никто не идеален, но моё имя не никто. _- If translated - Nobody is perfect, but my name is not nobody, In Russian it actually sounds good and means that there is nobody ideal, but then I am somebody

If go back to Chehov – it is really difficult to explain, but it just didn’t feel like him. The way people speak in small towns is different, he picked that up well, but I think things like this can’t be translated there must be made an interpretation if one is translation for example for British he must take for example small British town and British manners, cause if you never saw it you never get it. Even some of my friends so not get how brilliant he is, cause they never lived even for a month in a tiny town, so I explained them what he meant and all they could say : ooohhh, the truth they got nothing of the feeling of the book

[kiki1982]

That's interesting. English (Anglo-Saxon) is descended from a form of Frisian. Frisian dialects are still found in Holland & Germany I believe. There is some commonality with many English Midland's dialects.

Still, despite English and Dutch being related, I find English a very much more nuanced language. Older Dutch (until the 1950s) was much more nuanced than it is now because almost all words are considered archaic for some reason by the governing body. English has no organisation like the French have it too that dictates what is right, wrong, outdated or what-not. That is the problem in my mind. Translating, you are practically forced to use archaic words because modern words are not nuanced enough to say what is said in the original. Your scope is very narrow. Three synonyms is the most I think. Look in an English thesaurus: at least five words you can use, if not more, before descending into the depths of old posh words.


kiki1982, maybe I explained not well enough, the thing with nos - was nowhere it was an example of untranslatable cases, there is a well known phrase - If nobody is perfect, then hello my name is nobody. I once tried to translate in Russian and couldn't - well the translation was made but it had to be commented - explaining English grammar peculiarities - It was like this in Russian: если никто не идеален, тогда я никто, but it has no sense at if make word by word translation again it’ll be - if nobody is not perfect, then I am nobody, it is like saying if Jane is not perfect, then I am Jane, it is clearly not the thing meant in the original. Well I found some way to make it, but it came out more optimistic and not that sarcastic - Никто не идеален, но моё имя не никто. _- If translated - Nobody is perfect, but my name is not nobody, In Russian it actually sounds good and means that there is nobody ideal, but then I am somebody

If go back to Chehov – it is really difficult to explain, but it just didn’t feel like him. The way people speak in small towns is different, he picked that up well, but I think things like this can’t be translated there must be made an interpretation if one is translation for example for British he must take for example small British town and British manners, cause if you never saw it you never get it. Even some of my friends so not get how brilliant he is, cause they never lived even for a month in a tiny town, so I explained them what he meant and all they could say : ooohhh, the truth they got nothing of the feeling of the book

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I really wanted to understand and I congratulate myself that I see what you meant (my Russian is getting there then!).

I guess the way to translate Chechov into English then would be to make the players on the stage speak dialect of some kind? But then it is the question if you can pull that off easily because in most languages dialects are narrower than the main language...

[Red-Headed]

Still, despite English and Dutch being related, I find English a very much more nuanced language. Older Dutch (until the 1950s) was much more nuanced than it is now because almost all words are considered archaic for some reason by the governing body.

Seven out of ten spoken English words in any sentence are still virtually Anglo-Saxon but the Chancery English influence 1476 - 1776 CE (Latinate &/or Norman-French content) gets higher in written English. It is interesting that any of the nuance words (including the noun 'nuance') are of French origin. Then you have some Dane influence, so we sort of have three languages in one. Fundamental concepts seem to be expressed in the Germanic base to English & more advanced ones are often expressed in Latinate loan words.


English has no organisation like the French have it too that dictates what is right, wrong, outdated or what-not.

LOL, thank god!



That is the problem in my mind. Translating, you are practically forced to use archaic words because modern words are not nuanced enough to say what is said in the original. Your scope is very narrow. Three synonyms is the most I think. Look in an English thesaurus: at least five words you can use, if not more, before descending into the depths of old posh words.

I think grammatical cases can be a bit of a stumbling block as well. To the English the idea of engendered definite/indefinite articles (the, a, an) is ridiculous. Balto-Slavic languages, in the main, have no definite or indefinite articles at all.

[Anna_MAlkovych]

kiki1982, To tell the truth, I never heard a person not to speak dialect - they always do. There is a saying for instance to explain where you come from. You just ask people to finish it and you know where they were born and lived. It is: Жадина говядина... If Ukrainian finishes it - соленый огурец, на полу валяется никто его не есть, but depending on what part of Ukraine the end might differ If in St. Petersburg - пустая шоколадна. Moscow - турецкий барабан. And goes like this on and on The meaning is still the same. I remember when I first got to Odessa I thought - no problem people are people everywhere and the language is the same - how wrong I was, I couldn't understand the answers to my questions, they were always answering with questions (almost all Russian do, but their do it in such a manner that it becomes confusing) and there were so many grammar mistakes that actually weren't ones. For example if one asked where he should sit the answer was always: сюдой or тудою - instead of сюда or туда. This is the easiest example - it was easy to get, but the dialect seemed like a big set phrase thing, like a totally different language - close but different, it was no different from my holydays in Byelorussia; it took time to get the flow. And in my city - we have гля - instead of глянь (look), it is only here. My moms friend when wanting to smoke - давай отравимся (lets go take some poison). I am not sure how it is in German and English, but I think it is pretty much the same ( by the way it is funny - I am Russian who tries to learn German ( man, I just hate the amount of verbs and it's articles and the most that habit of making frame sentence construction, I wonder how people can learn Russian - when I think of it, it seems like either born here and get it, or never get it, I can't learn English up to the very end ( and it is said to be easy) and Russian well, I wonder how people learn the difference between our suffixes - I once tried to explain it and couldn't)) Talking about Chekhov the problem is not only with dialect - it is the small town itself, of course they have common things everywhere in the world, but still a lot differs. I so not think that in Germany grannies sit not near but actually on the entrance of the house ( I mean a block of flats) They really sit so you can't just pass and enter, you have to talk with them. And when you do they won't bother to make many movements to let you pass, so you'll have to go by side steps.

[billl]

Yep, just try to imagine Shakespeare in Dutch and it’ll give you an idea of some of the inevitable pitfalls of translated literature.

No need to watch the whole thing, I just want to say that it is at about 2:15 that I just can't buy into the performance anymore...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiRMGYQfXrs

[kiki1982]

kiki1982, To tell the truth, I never heard a person not to speak dialect - they always do. There is a saying for instance to explain where you come from. You just ask people to finish it and you know where they were born and lived. It is: Жадина говядина... If Ukrainian finishes it - соленый огурец, на полу валяется никто его не есть, but depending on what part of Ukraine the end might differ If in St. Petersburg - пустая шоколадна. Moscow - турецкий барабан. And goes like this on and on The meaning is still the same. I remember when I first got to Odessa I thought - no problem people are people everywhere and the language is the same - how wrong I was, I couldn't understand the answers to my questions, they were always answering with questions (almost all Russian do, but their do it in such a manner that it becomes confusing) and there were so many grammar mistakes that actually weren't ones. For example if one asked where he should sit the answer was always: сюдой or тудою - instead of сюда or туда. This is the easiest example - it was easy to get, but the dialect seemed like a big set phrase thing, like a totally different language - close but different, it was no different from my holydays in Byelorussia; it took time to get the flow. And in my city - we have гля - instead of глянь (look), it is only here. My moms friend when wanting to smoke - давай отравимся (lets go take some poison). I am not sure how it is in German and English, but I think it is pretty much the same ( by the way it is funny - I am Russian who tries to learn German ( man, I just hate the amount of verbs and it's articles and the most that habit of making frame sentence construction, I wonder how people can learn Russian - when I think of it, it seems like either born here and get it, or never get it, I can't learn English up to the very end ( and it is said to be easy) and Russian well, I wonder how people learn the difference between our suffixes - I once tried to explain it and couldn't)) Talking about Chekhov the problem is not only with dialect - it is the small town itself, of course they have common things everywhere in the world, but still a lot differs. I so not think that in Germany grannies sit not near but actually on the entrance of the house ( I mean a block of flats) They really sit so you can't just pass and enter, you have to talk with them. And when you do they won't bother to make many movements to let you pass, so you'll have to go by side steps.

Haha, I think that's the same problem as when one learns Arabic. I had a colleague and she did Arabic for six years in one of the best schools for languages in Belgium (university spin-off). She wasn't a bad student, but he went on holiday to Egypt I believe and did not understand a word, but could read signs, newspapers (the main titles) and such things. The thing was that there is something as standad Arabic, but no-one speaks it, so there she went. In the end, she could watch Al-Jazeera, but choose between either reading the subtitles or concentrating very hard on the speech because she could only (again) get the big lines. And that was after 6 years! To put this in a framework: the French course to perfection level was also 6 years and that was indeed almost perfection. You could ask those students anything, they would be able to answer. And I knew one who was Hungarian and who could not speak a word before her first year French. She went to the end and spoke it fluently, as she dd with Dutc too. I think the Arabic course took 10 years, but I wonder what result was obtained. In other languages there is something as a distinction between dialect and standard laguage. The boundary might still be unclear in Italian, although they do write in something that anyone in the country can read, but they speak in their own kind of dialect. That said, Germans have dialect, but most of them are taught and speak Hochdeutsch (standard German), the same for Spanish (Castillano that is the standard for pronunciation and writing) and certainly French which even regulates (like Dutch) what is right and wrong in its Académie Française already since the 17th century (if I am right on that). English is a little bit of an exception because you will hear on the BBC accents even on the news (something unheard of in Dutch, German, French and Spanish among others), but they will never talk about a 'bairn' (small child) or something. You will only hear that out of the mouth of guests on programms, never from the journalist. I believe Oxford English is kind of the standard. .

I am still hopeful about Russian, because there seems to be some stuff that is not present: you don't have to worry in the beginning about your verbs 'to be' and 'to have', they do not exist; verb conjugation is farely easy if you have seen Latin (or French) despite its three conjugations; you just have to learn some cases, which I have learned in German (some are the same, some not, but in the end just accept that it is different) and Latin which is a lot more difficult; Russian words are very much interrelated so it makes it easy when seeing a new one. The only thing which is frustrating is that, in the beginning, you don't have any rope to hold onto. No links with other languages I know. Grammarwise yes (German grammar is a great help), but vocabulary-wise nearly not apart from a few exceptions. Like you are driven mad by the German articles, I have been driven mad by the declension of nouns (:p) and their confusing endings (prepositional female is the same as its plural...). Other than that I have a very thorough Soviet book (if you see what I mean :p) that my husband used when he was in university learning Russian (one of the first reading excercises which came before lesson one was 'communist', only two reading lessons later came 'capitalist' :goof: :lol:). He speaks very well. I don't now whether he really speaks it as his mother tongue (probably not as he is not able to spend enough time there, but he can have a very long conversation in it). The book explains the issues in a very good linguistic way. If that was not the case, I don't think it would be any good.

I don't get any illusions about speaking Russian one day. I don't have the opportunity to go and spend a few months there to learn it, or to go there on holiday every three months. I'd like to read in it some day and I am confident I can, beause it's going well. I can get the great lines of a conversation now if I pay great attention. So I might get a children's book from the Russian shop soon.

Pushkin pulled me over the line.

[mal4mac]

I'm certainly getting something from Chekhov's English translations as I love his short stories. I've read several volumes of Ronald Hingley's Oxford World Classics translations and the odd story translated by others (like Garnett and Pevear/V), and I have found them all to be excellent. Also I didn't need to read any interpretation or footnotes! At least in Hingley's hands, the stories are transparent and as easy to read as Nick Hornby. Great writers, like D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, have been intensely moved by Garnett's translations. I prefer the atmosphere/essence that comes across in Chekhov translations to the atmosphere/essence found in most original British writings. So, for me, Chekhov translations are certainly a lot better than nothing, they are better than most things! I think the atmosphere and experiences that Chekhov relates are perfectly understandable to a British reader, given a good translation. He writes about universal human emotions and situations, you don't need to be a "small town Russian" to understand him, just a human being.

[Anna_MAlkovych]

kiki1982, you seem determined, in fact I just thought that Ukrainian might me easier for you - there is lots of borrowing from German like Dach, Krawatte and so on, even grammar is closer, but well in Ukrainian there are 7 cases (nightmare, isn't it) - it helps me sometimes to think in Ukrainian and then move to German (and l love that in German you can always see where noun is). I started learning Spanish and it seems way easier. Oh when I was on ICQ had a hard time explaining what is the word недоперепить (that is if I made a word in German (breaking all the rules of word forming) it'd be - nichtbiszuvieltriken - but that is still not a good description, the scary thing that there is also the same thing with eat and together they form so many expressions. Oh, Soviet books are the best, I adore them, those modern ones just cannot compare. I once got a German dictionary (a modern one) and there was See – like sea and lake was of the same gender – after that I hate modern dictionaries, so I found a great older ones 3- from 60s to 80s, one from 90s, and my fav – 1934.

[Anna_MAlkovych]

mal4mac, well I am happy for you, but I so wish you could get how greater it is than translation, I read Witch in English and I just didn't like it, it was so much different

[kiki1982]

Yes, determined, that should be the word. I just think, not trying to insult you naturally, that Russian is a better base for all other languages that can occur. At least to understand. It might be the hardest, but at least you won't be at a loss.

Spanish is amazingly easy, grammarwise. If you know French it is double easy, but there are vocabulary-wise some false friends like they call them in English. Anecdote: my husband (in his early years of Spanish) once told a few friends 'Estoi embarrassado', like the French and English 'I am embarrassed'. What he did not know is that the word in Spanish does exist, but not at all in the male equivalent... It is quite impossible because the word means... 'pregnant'. :lol::lol: 'Feo/a' is also a little strange at it means 'ugly', but there is the French/English equivalent 'faux/false' which means bad. It comes from the same root but has moved meanings a little... Other than that, Spanish is dirt easy, which shows in the general Spanish English-student being very bad at grammar... French are very good at it (they get drilled whe they are children) and so are Germans, but Spanish are crap. They don't have any. Slavs are the best at it. Naturraly, they are used to 7 cases or so, so everything like English is just nothing to them. To go more difficult, they should learn Latin or so or maybe somehting like Chinese...

[Anna_MAlkovych]

kiki1982, well Russian is indeed a good base for understanding variety of things I can think of at least 15 ways of saying hand -it is unlike that any other language can give more, but while Infinitive constructions and Gerund is something so widely used in English, in Russian the second one doesn't exist and the first is not used widely. The sounds, we have are really open ones, and most countries do not speak that way, had to think it over. And I think it gives no help with Chinese - that is was ranked the most difficult - wonder why their grammar is not, maybe because they have lots of boring remember by heart work, sometimes I wish I lived since childhood on the border between China and Russia - that way I'd know two most challenging languages, but well I am still kind of lucky – I guess I have the best motherland, but there is a bad side – I also live in one of the worst countries possible.
( on the first course I learned Latin a bit , but well it was just a quicky)

[Annamariah]

The dialect thing applies to Finnish as well. We have a common standard, which is used in written texts, but no one uses that in speech. Everyone speaks their own dialect.

By the way, if you think 7 cases is a nightmare, don't try Finnish, we have 14 or 15 cases (some say that two of them are basically the same case, some say they're two separate cases), and I've heard that in Hungarian there are even more.

As for verbs, just look at this diagram to see how many forms of each verb we have in Finnish :D Finnish verbs (http://koti.mbnet.fi/henrihe/tiede/verbikaava.html)

---

But even though all languages are different, there are ways to translate the general message and feel of the text even when direct translation is impossible. Everything won't be the same, but the goal in translating fiction is usually to make the reader of the translation feel like the original target audience did reading the original. The translator has to remember that what makes people in one culture react in a certain way doesn't necessarily evoke the same reaction in another language. Translation is constant tiptoeing between two languages and cultures.

[Madame X]

By the way, if you think 7 cases is a nightmare, don't try Finnish, we have 14 or 15 cases (some say that two of them are basically the same case, some say they're two separate cases), and I've heard that in Hungarian there are even more.

But most of those cases are simply ‘suffixed’, if you will, -and highly regular, from what I understand- equivalents to all those damnable prepositions that IE languages love so much. And seeing that (aside from idioms/colloquialisms) the correct usage of prepositions is usually one of the most frustrating aspects of foreign language learning, Finnish might actually be a bit of a godsend in that particular respect after all...for anyone weird enough to actually want to study it. :D

[mal4mac]

:lol: I once went to Shakespeare's The Tempest by one of the leading amateur companies in Belgium (pretty good)... Insufferable! I'd much rather struggle and call a few people who know the word I am looking for than read him in Dutch... That said I start to get him better the more older English I read. The same for Chaucer, who is absolutely hilarious! You can just hear Austen in that, and yet they are so many years/centuries apart!

If there are no good translations of Shakespeare into Dutch then there's a great opportunity for someone! Just because one amateur group in Belgium made a hash of it surely doesn't mean that a good translation is not possible. Shakespeare's repution in Germany was made by (reputedly) excellent translations:

http://german.about.com/od/literature/a/Shakespeare.htm

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2866869

[kiki1982]

@Mal4mac:

Those groups all use certified translations, so it is not their performance which is the problem, it was the translation.

All groups are rated and even amateur groups need to ask for permission for more modern pieces to perform them. If their file and production is not good enough, they cease to get anything meaningful, so that they are reduced to performing old pieces without copyright (free to violate and perform badly if they like). This amateur group I am talking about is one of the top in Belgium and is only classed as amateur because the members work for a living and because they desire to keep it small. They have performed a bunch of newer things with great satisfaction, so they are not at all 'amateurs' as meaning 'bad players'.

There is an additional problem with Shakespeare in Dutch, not in German. Lyrical as German may be, 'to be, or not to be, that is the question' still has a nicer rhythm and sound than 'sein oder nicht sein - das ist die Frage'. But not knowing German might be an issue here.

There is an additional problem as I said in Dutch because there is no way to translate 'thou/thee/thy/thine' and get the same feel. Correction, there is, but nobody wants it. Madame X will agree that one could use 'gij/u/uw/uwe', the older versions of 'jij/je (jou)/jouw (je)/jouw (je)' (you) even still declined (which has stopped since before the 50s) and still widely used in Flanders (with the exception of the declension 'uwe') but not so in the Netherlands where it is seen as something old only used in the bible anymore. The thing is, it is older, so it is false and one will never find a contemporary translation of Shakepeare with 'gij'. That should be the case though to get a more Skakespearian feel, but it is not.

One can still use 'I daresay', 'I'll be sworn', 'I'll be bound', and things Hardy and even Brontë or Austen used in modern English. Try that with the Dutch of Couperus (1900s), Elschot (1910s through to 1930s), Gezelle (1830) and Emants (1870s-80s).

Een stonde, ure? The only thing we can use is 'op tijd en stond' which means 'in time' and 'maandstonden' which means '(female monthly) period'. The word 'stonde' used to be a synonym for 'hour', but is no longer.

Just one example to put this problem in perspective:

My husband is an English teacher and shows his adult students of his highest levels Yes Minister which is early 80s through to late. No problem. Sir Humphry, James Hacker and Bernard Woolley speak properly, but do not go over the top. It is not so different from high class people today. Even written language is similar (Hacker's first speech as Prime Minister). In Flanders there was at about the same time a series about the ministery too, called De Collega's (The Colleagues). The spoken Flemish language is much the same as it is now, but the Standard language as spoken by Bonaventuur Verastehove and Mr De Vucht (later in the series) is very much outdated. Both in vocabulary and pronunciation. De Fabeltjeskrant (The Fablenewspaper more or less, a children's programm through to the 80s) is a good example for the Dutch part of the Dutch language: while the speaking language of all characaters if quite ok and uses colloquial Dutch, the main character, Mister Owl reads from a newspaper and occasionally uses older words and expressions too. However, the Dutch have always kept their standard language closer to their mothertongue where the Flemish wanted it totally different (and more Dutch). As a result, modern is the standard and since the fifties and even eighties Dutch has changed so much that it is hopelessly outdated.

Leaving all aside, it is impossible to put an older feel into modern Dutch translation because it is not allowed, and modernisation is imperative. One can never translate Shakespeare properly then, or one should take a translation from a much older poet as Vondel or so, but then one is in danger of using words the public does not understand.

[Anna_MAlkovych]

Annamariah, tar’s crazy, it is a nightmare, now I will never sleep , it will stalk me in my dream, here I thought , that 7 is too much, but 14, people are really miraculous creatures and language is a proof ( looked it through still think that our cases are more complicated, though they are not that numerous)
---
Talking about bad translation, I hate Alice in Wonderland translation in Russian. When I read it in Russian when I was small and then in high school – I felt nothing, and then I read it in English – god, that was so good, so exciting, so crazy, I loved it, I adored it, but what is funny, I watched two cartoon’s of Alice one Disney ( god I want to kill them) and our USSR one and the USSR was good, really Lewis Carol like, just the atmosphere was better somehow, and the song in the cartoon was so nice too ( though there was no song like that in the book).

[kiki1982]

haha 15 cases I'd like to try! :lol: But are not some of them the same or something? I always think that cases are an artificial concept thought up by humans to make sense of all those weird changes in a certain position or function to a certain word. The ancient peoples were the first to use them (were the Celts not one of them too?), but they had no clue about them and just did so. Then in an urge to be able to learn Latin and Greek there was someone somewhere who decided about the so-called 'case', it's even got a very telling name in English... ;)

That said, about good Russians films: The Three Musketeers from the 70s is also great. Fans of the Musketeers adore it. It's on YouTube. I find it amazing. Despite its 70s music, it reflects so well the jolly atmosphere of that book and also with music. The French/English films do not really. Music and singing is the main feature. I guess because it is so much part of Russian culture. In fact, apart from the 70s Soviet-film, there has ironically been no interesting film made of that book...
French films are also always good. It is rare that you see a bad French film. Certainly of their classics they are unbeatable.

[mal4mac]

@Mal4mac:

Those groups all use certified translations, so it is not their performance which is the problem, it was the translation.


I recently read parts of (the excellent) "Divine Comedies for the New Millennium: Recent Dante Translations in America and the Netherlands" by Ronald De Rooy, which was a great help in my quest to find a good translation of the Comedy (in modern English!) I wasn't really that interested in the comments on the Dutch translations, but at least gained the impression that there are some good translations out there. There were some comments on Shakespeare translation in Dutch:

"On Kok's Shakespeare translations, see Robert H. Leek, Shakespeare in Nederland, Zutphen, De Walburg Pers, 1988, esp. pp. 78-81, 83-85, 113-14; on p. 81 our translator is called `a very gifted man, who paired a real talent with a superior and for his times very modern insight into Shakespeare's mind and art'"

Is there really much difference between the feel of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." and "Shall I compare you to a summer's day"? OK the former is more lyrical, but most of Shakespeare remains intact...

You can't expect *any* translator to produce the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare, but if you can translate most of the meaning, and most formal aspects, then surely that is a good thing. Surely this can be achieved in any language, given a talented translator?

I don't think it would be useful to strain to translate "thee" into the equivalent in old Dutch. One of the advantage of a translation is that the reader gets to read a version in a modern language, making the text transparent to them in the same way that Shakespeare was transparent to the (reasonably educated!) playgoers of his day. I've even seen Shakespeare translated into modern English... though that's going too far!

Has your husband encountered the latest update of Yes Minister - The Thick Of It? If not - Christmas present sorted :) It's probably a better representation of the *actual* language spoken in political circles since the 1960s, certainly the expletive count is about the same as I have encountered in UK academic circles...

In summary: I usually prefer modernising translations. As I'm forced to read Shakespeare in the original I want the rest of my reading to be as straightforward as possible :) As one can never produce a perfect translation of Shakespeare, you might as well translate him into a language that everyone can understand. There were some abominable 'archaising' translations of Dante, Goethe, etc, in the Victorian period, that used a lot of thees and thous -- so using old language is not always good...

[Annamariah]

But most of those cases are simply ‘suffixed’, if you will, -and highly regular, from what I understand- equivalents to all those damnable prepositions that IE languages love so much. And seeing that (aside from idioms/colloquialisms) the correct usage of prepositions is usually one of the most frustrating aspects of foreign language learning, Finnish might actually be a bit of a godsend in that particular respect after all...for anyone weird enough to actually want to study it. :D
Yes, our cases are suffixed, but not always so simply. Let's take the word "vesi", "water", for example. The suffix of the genitive case in Finnish is "-n", but the genitive of "vesi" is not "vesin", but "veden". "Vesin" is actually instructive case. Also the suffix of the partitive case is "-a" or "-ä", but "vesiä" is the plural partitive, while the single partitive is "vettä". Because of consonant gradation each word can have three stems. Some words are very easy to inflect, though :)


haha 15 cases I'd like to try! :lol: But are not some of them the same or something? I always think that cases are an artificial concept thought up by humans to make sense of all those weird changes in a certain position or function to a certain word. The ancient peoples were the first to use them (were the Celts not one of them too?), but they had no clue about them and just did so. Then in an urge to be able to learn Latin and Greek there was someone somewhere who decided about the so-called 'case', it's even got a very telling name in English... ;)
I think it's not lying to say that 14 of the cases look differet and serve different purposes. Some of them aren't as frequently used as the others, though. They are also very necessary, as Finnish doesn't have prepositions like "in", "from", or "to", but uses cases (inessive, elative, and illative) instead of them.

But studying Russian, which uses both prepositions and cases drives me mad :D I can never remember which preposition demands which case...

[Madame X]

There is an additional problem as I said in Dutch because there is no way to translate 'thou/thee/thy/thine' and get the same feel. Correction, there is, but nobody wants it. Madame X will agree that one could use 'gij/u/uw/uwe', the older versions of 'jij/je (jou)/jouw (je)/jouw (je)' (you) even still declined (which has stopped since before the 50s) and still widely used in Flanders (with the exception of the declension 'uwe') but not so in the Netherlands where it is seen as something old only used in the bible anymore. The thing is, it is older, so it is false and one will never find a contemporary translation of Shakepeare with 'gij'. That should be the case though to get a more Skakespearian feel, but it is not.

Not to mention I don’t think there’s really much of a market for such translations here anymore anyway. English is pretty commonplace; if Shakespeare is taught at all it’ll almost certainly be in the original tongue, tout court. Although they might not grasp all the original archaisms, you might even run the risk of seriously offending someone by giving them some lame Dutch translation. :smash:


One can still use 'I daresay', 'I'll be sworn', 'I'll be bound', and things Hardy and even Brontë or Austen used in modern English. Try that with the Dutch of Couperus (1900s), Elschot (1910s through to 1930s), Gezelle (1830) and Emants (1870s-80s).

Hehe, although, fun to note, Dutch (like German) maintains some interesting constructions that, while perfectly normal to a modern Dutch ear, if translated literally into English end up sounding somewhat formal or even antiquated: waarheen = whither, hiernaartoe = hither, hiermee = herewith, daarna = thereafter, waarin = wherein, hierin = herein, etc. :cool:

[Madame X]

Is there really much difference between the feel of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." and "Shall I compare you to a summer's day"? OK the former is more lyrical, but most of Shakespeare remains intact...

You can't expect *any* translator to produce the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare, but if you can translate most of the meaning, and most formal aspects, then surely that is a good thing. Surely this can be achieved in any language, given a talented translator?

I wouldn’t personally go so far as to say that translation is a completely worthless endeavour, heck, I read enough translated literature myself...but if you’re competent enough in both the source and target language of any translated text, no matter how capable, you can’t help but feel a sense of, I suppose, disappointment, upon comparison, that certain integral elements of the original simply couldn’t have been rendered truer/better.

Just take that nice couplet from sonnet #12 (wouldn’t dream of torturing you with the whole thing ;)):

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence,
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

One Dutch version gives us this:

De tand des tijds wordt door geen hand gekeerd –
Tenzij je een kind maakt en hem zo trotseert.

Literally: The cog of time is turned by no hand
Unless you have a child and so defy it (time).

Sure it rhymes and all, gets the general meaning across, and there’s even an instance of the old genitive case (des tijds; although it’s a common enough expression) but, in the end, it clearly isn’t even in the same ballpark. Win some lose some, I s'pose.

[kiki1982]

Is there really much difference between the feel of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." and "Shall I compare you to a summer's day"? OK the former is more lyrical, but most of Shakespeare remains intact...

Yes, there is. 'Thee' sounds a lot better and gives a better rhythm, but other than that, if wrongly understood, it means actually that Shakespeare was addressing his beloved in a very polite way, as Benedick and Beatrice do at some point when they call each other 'you'. There have been lots of studies about 'thou' and 'you' in Shakespeare, so modernising it and claiming 'you' means the same as 'thou' is a little too easy...


Has your husband encountered the latest update of Yes Minister - The Thick Of It? If not - Christmas present sorted :) It's probably a better representation of the *actual* language spoken in political circles since the 1960s, certainly the expletive count is about the same as I have encountered in UK academic circles...

Apparently Thatcher found it so lifelike that she enjoyed it thoroughly and even called the Downing Street cat who one day walked in 'Humphry', after Sir Humphry Appleby. At any rate, it is no matter whether it i true or not, it is a matter of manner of speech, which has stayed largely the same with eloquent people since then. It cannot be said about Dutch in that way.


In summary: I usually prefer modernising translations. As I'm forced to read Shakespeare in the original I want the rest of my reading to be as straightforward as possible :) As one can never produce a perfect translation of Shakespeare, you might as well translate him into a language that everyone can understand. There were some abominable 'archaising' translations of Dante, Goethe, etc, in the Victorian period, that used a lot of thees and thous -- so using old language is not always good...

What is wrong with Shakespeare? I always wonder at people who claim they cannot understand and that it takes such a long time for them to comprehend. The times that I had a hard time to understand when I was still learning English and reading some Romeo and Juliet in class with of course liited vocabulary... Surely English people must have a better shot at it from the first time?

@Madame X:

oh my God, that was interesting! It was nothing like it!

[mal4mac]

You can usually see that the speaker is being polite from the context, which may be why thee has fallen into oblivion! ('scuse pun. I do not mean to insult thee.)

I agree that "thee" sounds a lot better...

There is nothing wrong with Shakespeare! I was certainly not trying to imply that. But, surely, you have to admit that Shakespeare is more difficult to read than, say, Fielding. I make that comparison because I'm reading Troilus & Cressida and Tom Jones at the moment--and I have no doubt that Shakespeare is more difficult--and I've read about ten of his plays this year so if one can get up to speed I should certainly be up to speed...

Shakespeare makes many allusions + uses obscure and compressed language. I can generally get at least one of the allusions, fairly quickly, and can look up the obscure words, and decompress the language, but this makes the reading process more difficult than breezing through Fielding.

Of course much of the language has great beauty and the compression is often marvellous. So the effort is definitely worth it! (Even for problem plays like Troilus and Cressida...)

Surely you would admit it takes *more time* to comprehend Shakespeare. It's not that most Brits couldn't acquire adequate understanding of their greatest poet's works, it is that many are too impatient to make the effort.

[kiki1982]

Wel, there is comprehension and comprehension. Allusion is not the same as vocabulary/language. Allusion moves on the cultural level where language moves on the knowledge level. I can perfectly (liguistically) comprehend something where I am totally oblivious to any allusion/cultural level altogether. Shakespeare is compressed because of his time limit and because of his verse-structure. He needed to hold onto both which compelled him to have weird constructions and say things in as little words as possible.

One can spend years researching even a 19th century book, although one has totally comprehended it word-wise. But for the understanding of the Ideas behind the vocabulary there are such people as critics to guide one.

[Red-Headed]

This may seem a very obvious thing to say, but remember that Shakespeare's plays were never meant to be read like a novel. The Elizabethan stage was not like the proscenium arch that we are familiar with today. There was no real concept of realism & the language employed by the actors was as much a device as any other prop.

[kiki1982]

That's why I prefer not to read plays. They do not speak as they do on a stage in a good production.

[mal4mac]

I like *both* to read and watch Shakespeare's plays. With reading you can slow down when you hit a philosophical passage, read it several times, think, and then move on... I doubt Shakespeare expected all but the cleverest of his audience (Ben Jonson?) to get everything in a play in an evening at the theatre, but he was clever enough to write so that the groundlings could shrug off the philosophical interludes and still mightily enjoy the action sequences.

If my theory is correct :) then this stance is interesting, it implies that the groundlings were willing to accept Shakespeare writing compressed philosophical arguments and also to accept that they wouldn't understand them - "they knew their place". Shakespeare doen't make it onto prime time BBC 1 because a modern audience will not accept not being able to understand "the complicated bits".

The BBC should have a series on each play that takes us through a slow reading so that we get the complicated bits (to a reasonable extent!) and preceed and succeed the slow reading by a full performance -- maybe didg out a classic (olivier...) for the first showing, and a new boy for the second (Tennant...) at the end of the week. What's BBC4 for if not for this?

[Red-Headed]

. I doubt Shakespeare expected all but the cleverest of his audience (Ben Jonson?) to get everything in a play in an evening at the theatre, but he was clever enough to write so that the groundlings could shrug off the philosophical interludes and still mightily enjoy the action sequences.

I've often wondered about this & it implies that there were also many who could appreciate much of Shakespeare's writing.


If my theory is correct :) then this stance is interesting, it implies that the groundlings were willing to accept Shakespeare writing compressed philosophical arguments and also to accept that they wouldn't understand them - "they knew their place". Shakespeare doen't make it onto prime time BBC 1 because a modern audience will not accept not being able to understand "the complicated bits".

Or maybe he just didn't underestimate his audience.

[kiki1982]

I think I agree with Red-Headed... If I understood that rightly.

The BBC is working towards too much political correctness and does not want to risk to offend the 'groundlings' by broadcasting something too difficult. This could be called really snobish, even worse than the class system that divided the country for hundreds of years, but there you go. Never mind that anything nice and really funny goes out of the window. Their recent abomination of Emma followed by a slightly easier and straightforward Garrow's Law is a good illustration.

Austen's complicated wit went out of the window because people might not have been able to understand what Austen was on about, and certainly not when Churchill was charming. They might have been offended at the class-system and not understood certain things (appearace v reality). Garrow's Law dwelled on the simple theme of enimosity between two people in the same profession (Mr Silverster v Mr Garrow), illegitimate love between two people (Lady Sarah a married woman and inexperienced Mr Garrow) and of course on the British fetish with fairness. It is no sneer to the British at all. Yet, that fairness could have been played out in a less black-and-white format. And then of course the political format that brings another facet to the fairness-theme. You begin with shocking the public by having the jury laugh while conferring, branding a screeming woman and then comes in Garrow, appalled and determined to do something about this. Our hero moves against his boss, the establishment and the public. He fails, but then, he succeeds and does not cease to succeed. Please, some nuance would have been great. Give these same archives to the French, and they do something more nuanced, fairer and thrilling from a political point of view with it. Tey would have made the viewer understand what the bad guy was about too. He had his reasons, no doubt, like Javert, but why? Too difficult for the poor British 'groundlings', I suppose?

[mal4mac]

I watched a couple of episodes of Garrow, and didn't like it. It was very slow paced, not very funny, and full of cliches. Did he have to have that duel? Isn't he supposed to be more sensible than the average wig wearer? It's not as bad as Paradox, though :)

What's wrong with British drama? The Americans are doing it so much better these days -- "The Wire", "West Wing" ... even "True Blood" (at least it's pacy...)