Translated Works?

[astrum]

How do you feel about reading translated works of literature/writing?

Do you have a certain reservation or worry that much has been lost in translation?



To those who understand another world language: have you ever read something in its original language and then read it in English (or any other translation)? If so, how much a difference was there?

[hannah_arendt]

If it comes to English, Spanish I don`t like reading translations.

It is not possible that a translation be as good as original text.

I remember that I was really satisfied when I managed to read some poems in German and French at school.

[Goodman Brown]

well then how do you feel about the translation from Italian to English as in the Divine Comedy ,, Dantes Inferno, written in Italian and trecet form?? do you think something was lost there????

[mortalterror]

Agreed, no Polish text is as good in translation. Don't even bother trying to read them or translate them if you can't read the original Polish. It's just not worth it.

Other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, and Persian benefit quite a bit more and hardly anything is lost. There are many beautiful translations from those languages, but again, none from Polish. It's a mystery.

[hannah_arendt]

well then how do you feel about the translation from Italian to English as in the Divine Comedy ,, Dantes Inferno, written in Italian and trecet form?? do you think something was lost there????

I think that there are many elementes impossible to translate such as very slight difference in meaning of words what can be considered as synonimes.

[hannah_arendt]

Agreed, no Polish text is as good in translation. Don't even bother trying to read them or translate them if you can't read the original Polish. It's just not worth it.

Other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, and Persian benefit quite a bit more and hardly anything is lost. There are many beautiful translations from those languages, but again, none from Polish. It's a mystery.

Lem is the most often translated polish author as far as I know. Szymborska and Miłosz too.

[mortalterror]

Lem is the most often translated polish author as far as I know. Szymborska and Miłosz too.

Well yeah, but nobody likes them do they? They're translations, and they can't possibly be any good in another language.

[hannah_arendt]

Well yeah, but nobody likes them do they? They're translations, and they can't possibly be any good in another language.

I am not a big fan of Lem. But Szymborska and Miłosz sound very good in English too.

[Pierre Menard]

Just on Milosz, I know he translates a lot of his own poems into English and gets his English translator (whoever is doing that volume) to help him smooth it out. I'm always slightly more encouraged when I know a poet has had a role in translating his own work.

[lichtrausch]

They're a necessary evil. The only way to avoid them is if you plan to avoid literature in the dozens of literary languages that you are inevitably never going to get around to learning. I can now read literature in a few different languages and it feels so much better not having to doubt the accuracy or sense of what you are reading. I have some ambitious plans for language learning and if it all works out I'll be able to read literature in all the major languages and will only have to fall back on translations for smaller languages like Hungarian, Czech, Malayalam and the countless others.

[hannah_arendt]

Just on Milosz, I know he translates a lot of his own poems into English and gets his English translator (whoever is doing that volume) to help him smooth it out. I'm always slightly more encouraged when I know a poet has had a role in translating his own work.

Miłosz wrote also history of polish literature for his american students.

[astrum]

I wonder why Polish would be harder to translate than other languages.

[cafolini]

The difficulty of the Polish making sense for the times was that they were rebellious against the fascist Roman Catholics. And they were not integrated to evolve beyond that. The result was that some of them went against Hitler's tanks on horseback. This prompted the world to start making mockery of the Polish. Stupid jokes were bountiful.

How do you sink a Polish submarine?
You just put it in the water.

What is a guy with a lit match taped to his forehead?
A Polish miner.

And so on...and on.

But I agree with Hannah that Polish literature, from those who understood the problem, was beautiful.

[Darcy88]

My eyes were opened to how much changes in the process of translation when I read Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal. Each poem was shown in multiple translations. The variation between those translations was astonishing. It bothered me for a while, but now I've accepted it. A great book in Spanish well translated makes for a great book in English, its as simple as that. It would assuredly be an immensely satisfying thing to be able to read all of one's favourite books in their original language, but I just don't have the time to master Spanish, French, German, ancient Greek and Russian.

A few years ago I went through a language learning phase and tried to teach myself Japanese, Sanskrit and German all at the same time. Didn't work out. Now I limit myself to a modest study of Spanish and just enough to maintain the basic level of French that I have. Spanish is the one I am most eager to learn, as I'd like to travel to South America, and I want to read Don Quixote and One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original Spanish before I die.

[astrum]

A few years ago I went through a language learning phase and tried to teach myself Japanese, Sanskrit and German all at the same time. Didn't work out. Now I limit myself to a modest study of Spanish and just enough to maintain the basic level of French that I have. Spanish is the one I am most eager to learn, as I'd like to travel to South America, and I want to read Don Quixote and One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original Spanish before I die.


Darcy88,

Perhaps you will find this video inspirational. This man's dedication to language-learning is almost superhuman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oudgdh6tl00

[Goodman Brown]

Hey Darcy I understand about trying to learn another language, acouple of years ago I tried to learn Vietnamese by books and tapes didn't work out , but I was born into a Spanish family and learned it ,even thou I never studied it I can read and write it and that opens up another huge library

[hannah_arendt]

I wonder why Polish would be harder to translate than other languages.

There are no easier or more difficult languages.

[Darcy88]

Darcy88,

Perhaps you will find this video inspirational. This man's dedication to language-learning is almost superhuman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oudgdh6tl00

That's an interesting video. I wouldn't take it as far as that guy though. It seemed he was studying over a dozen languages. I'd be satisfied with french, spanish, german, russian and ancient greek.


Hey Darcy I understand about trying to learn another language, acouple of years ago I tried to learn Vietnamese by books and tapes didn't work out , but I was born into a Spanish family and learned it ,even thou I never studied it I can read and write it and that opens up another huge library

You're lucky to know Spanish. Its literally one of my life goals to read Don Quixote and One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original Spanish with close to flawless comprehension.

[hannah_arendt]

The difficulty of the Polish making sense for the times was that they were rebellious against the fascist Roman Catholics. And they were not integrated to evolve beyond that. The result was that some of them went against Hitler's tanks on horseback. This prompted the world to start making mockery of the Polish. Stupid jokes were bountiful.

How do you sink a Polish submarine?
You just put it in the water.

What is a guy with a lit match taped to his forehead?
A Polish miner.

And so on...and on.

But I agree with Hannah that Polish literature, from those who understood the problem, was beautiful.

Many of the jokes and opinion about Poles come from somewhere. However we cannot compare Poland today with Poland from 30s. Nowadays this country has been changed into very weak country. Probably if the IIWW hadn`t happened, everything would be different now. I read many articles according to which, Poland should have suported Hitler what of course was impossible. It`s just stupid saying something like that. Unfortunately there people believing in it. Despite it, Poland still has a very big potential. There are many young people who are forced to move out but maybe one day something will change (I don`t believe in it).

[hannah_arendt]

That's an interesting video. I wouldn't take it as far as that guy though. It seemed he was studying over a dozen languages. I'd be satisfied with french, spanish, german, russian and ancient greek.



You're lucky to know Spanish. Its literally one of my life goals to read Don Quixote and One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original Spanish with close to flawless comprehension.

I`ve read 2 times Marquez in Spanish up to now. It was very difficult for me but I managed to do it. Spanish is a very beautifull language. In spite of commiting some mistakes I`ve published my works in Spanish but I still have to put effort to do it better.

Have you read Carlos Fuentes or Octavio Paz?

[Mr.lucifer]

Is it true you don't have to be a fluent speaker to a fluent reader? I feel like being lazy and settling for the reading part and forget speaking if I'm only in it for the reading.

[Darcy88]

I`ve read 2 times Marquez in Spanish up to now. It was very difficult for me but I managed to do it. Spanish is a very beautifull language. In spite of commiting some mistakes I`ve published my works in Spanish but I still have to put effort to do it better.

Have you read Carlos Fuentes or Octavio Paz?

Not much, just a couple of short stories which I did enjoy.

[hannah_arendt]

Not much, just a couple of short stories which I did enjoy.

If it somes to Fuentes, one of my favourite ones in "Terra Nostra". It`s a trilogy. Recently I`ve bought it in polish.

[hannah_arendt]

Is it true you don't have to be a fluent speaker to a fluent reader? I feel like being lazy and settling for the reading part and forget speaking if I'm only in it for the reading.

It is said that speaking, reafding and writting should be coherent. Howeve it is true that there are some people who can read very advanced texts but have problem with speaking at this level.

[Mr.lucifer]

Would I be able to pronounce the words properly in my head? Its just the fact that reading translated works isn't as good as reading them in the original language bothers me and its makes me curious. I would like to know what it is like, but I'm not interested in being a fluent speaker.

For example, if I wanted to read in french but wasn't sure if I would ever visit France, I would prefer to be a fluent french reader.

[hannah_arendt]

Would I be able to pronounce the words properly in my head? Its just the fact that reading translated works isn't as good as reading them in the original language bothers me and its makes me curious. I would like to know what it is like, but I'm not interested in being a fluent speaker.

For example, if I wanted to read in french but wasn't sure if I would ever visit France, I would prefer to be a fluent french reader.

It depends on you.

[lichtrausch]

Is it true you don't have to be a fluent speaker to a fluent reader?

Yes, it's possible. The literary language can diverge quite a bit from the colloquial language at times. For some languages this is especially pronounced and we have diglossia. That said, you can't help but improve your speaking skills some as you read more and more. That's because much of the stuff you learn to read can also be used in colloquial language for a language like French or Spanish.

[lichtrausch]

My eyes were opened to how much changes in the process of translation when I read Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal. Each poem was shown in multiple translations. The variation between those translations was astonishing. It bothered me for a while, but now I've accepted it. A great book in Spanish well translated makes for a great book in English, its as simple as that. It would assuredly be an immensely satisfying thing to be able to read all of one's favourite books in their original language, but I just don't have the time to master Spanish, French, German, ancient Greek and Russian.

When I first started learning languages, it seemed like such an incredibly time-consuming process that I resigned myself to only ever learning one or two of them in my life. But as time went on, and I learned how to learn languages, I also started seeing the huge web of connections between many languages. For example, while learning Japanese I found out that all East Asian languages share thousands and thousands of words of Chinese origin that were borrowed from Chinese throughout the millennia. These words usually aren't exactly the same in each language, but knowing one of these languages gives you a definite advantage in tackling another. The same kind of web of connections exists in Western Asia for languages like Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Turkish which share thousands of Perso-Arabic vocabulary. And of course in the West we have the shared Greco-Roman vocabulary.

And I haven't even gotten into how many of these languages are related genetically, which gives us another advantage in learning additional languages. If you learn one Romance language, then you can learn the rest of them with relative ease. So the bottom line is that the more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn additional languages. Learning those first one or two languages is the most difficult part. But be careful. Once you start down the road to polyglottery, language learning can become very addictive! (See: Alexander Arguelles)

[astrum]

Here are a few sites that I'd recommend:

1. www.lang-8.com

2. www.ver-taal.com (it has a ton of listening exercises)

3. www.wordreference.com (one of the best English-Spanish dictionaries)

4. www.espanglishchat.com


YouTube is also great; you can find a ton of foreign-language films, documentaries, interviews, etc. Some of them are even closed captioned!

[cafolini]

You have some very good points. Many people think that learning another language serves the purpose of reading works in the original. But the important aspect of it is the ability to see different ways that are not translated no matter what. That gives you a lot of flexibility in the art of thinking. And it is addictive but very good stuff for mental health.

[kiki1982]

Is it true you don't have to be a fluent speaker to a fluent reader? I feel like being lazy and settling for the reading part and forget speaking if I'm only in it for the reading.

Of course. I suppose it varies from language to language, but passive knowledge (that which you don't produce yourself, like reading and listening) is always better, because you usually understand more than you use, also in your own language.
I always get frustrated by the lack of French and German I can speak. In my head, I can have a perfect conversation, but make me do it, and it goes belly-up.

Annamaria is right in that many languages are genetically related. Even across different language groups, you can recognise certain roots (linguist call them) that mean the same. Take a simple object like chair. The Dutch is 'stoel' (pronounced stool), the German is 'Stuhl' (pronounced the same) and the English have 'stool' which is essentially a chair without the back on it, but they've got chair (which obviously replaced stool as the common word once the French were there; and yes the stuff you submit to the doctor probably also comes from the idea you sit on a stool to produce it) from the French 'chaise'. You only need to think a little it more general to be able to understand more. The Italian and Spanish words come from the word 'to sit' (sedia and silla), which comes from Latin, but it reated to D zitten, G sitzen and English to sit and seat, and gives English words like 'sedentary'.
OK, that's quite simple, but reading and learning like that probably gives you a great advantage. It takes less effort to remember words.

When it comes to translations, and certainly literary translations, I think many translators (of what I see on Proz) overestimate their knowledge of their foreign language. You've got Chinese and Indians translating into English which is not English, and Dutch translating into Dunglish (and the Germans) as it is called, but then you get the native speakers who go 'anything that is translated must be translated by a native speaker'. They forget that a mother tongue speaker of the source always understands the source that little bit differently. In most texts, this doesn't really matter, but I think in literary translation that is particularly important.
For example, for those who know German, there are people translating from German struggling with modal verbs and Konj. I (direct discourse). I ask you: why does one think one can translate properly if one doesn't understand the text! I dread to think what they make of a seriously intricate literary text.
And it's not only about pretty simple things like this (you can learn those), it's also about implied jokes, symbolism, which some of those people can't possibly understand.

As an author (and certainly a poet), I for one, would insist on a native speaker source translating my work first and then have a native speaker target work on it to discuss on why the native speaker source has used certain words and so the NSS can correct the NST if he gets carried away.

When it comes to Polish, without really knowing any, but having spent several weeks with Poles, I think there is the problem that it is an extremely intricate language, very dense with a lot of cases and suffixes that slightly change the meaning of things. If you get the meaning totally, then you've got the problem that it destroys the flow of the language as you need a lot more words than you should use. And then there is a kind of hidden anger, sense of depressed quashed superiority and honour that is really difficult to capture. Don't know about the modern generation (they've probably lost it a bit), but the older generation certainly still has it. Different than the Czechs for example. The Czechs are entrepreneurs and they make do, the Polish wallow i melancholy. Difficult to understand why you would get stuck in the times about 100 or 200 ago when you were a great nation. In the meantime, everyone is moving forward. Dutch writer Marcellus Emants captured that astonishingly well in his Polish character Oszinsky, but I suppose it's difficult to understand.

[hannah_arendt]

Of course. I suppose it varies from language to language, but passive knowledge (that which you don't produce yourself, like reading and listening) is always better, because you usually understand more than you use, also in your own language.
I always get frustrated by the lack of French and German I can speak. In my head, I can have a perfect conversation, but make me do it, and it goes belly-up.

Annamaria is right in that many languages are genetically related. Even across different language groups, you can recognise certain roots (linguist call them) that mean the same. Take a simple object like chair. The Dutch is 'stoel' (pronounced stool), the German is 'Stuhl' (pronounced the same) and the English have 'stool' which is essentially a chair without the back on it, but they've got chair (which obviously replaced stool as the common word once the French were there; and yes the stuff you submit to the doctor probably also comes from the idea you sit on a stool to produce it) from the French 'chaise'. You only need to think a little it more general to be able to understand more. The Italian and Spanish words come from the word 'to sit' (sedia and silla), which comes from Latin, but it reated to D zitten, G sitzen and English to sit and seat, and gives English words like 'sedentary'.
OK, that's quite simple, but reading and learning like that probably gives you a great advantage. It takes less effort to remember words.

When it comes to translations, and certainly literary translations, I think many translators (of what I see on Proz) overestimate their knowledge of their foreign language. You've got Chinese and Indians translating into English which is not English, and Dutch translating into Dunglish (and the Germans) as it is called, but then you get the native speakers who go 'anything that is translated must be translated by a native speaker'. They forget that a mother tongue speaker of the source always understands the source that little bit differently. In most texts, this doesn't really matter, but I think in literary translation that is particularly important.
For example, for those who know German, there are people translating from German struggling with modal verbs and Konj. I (direct discourse). I ask you: why does one think one can translate properly if one doesn't understand the text! I dread to think what they make of a seriously intricate literary text.
And it's not only about pretty simple things like this (you can learn those), it's also about implied jokes, symbolism, which some of those people can't possibly understand.

As an author (and certainly a poet), I for one, would insist on a native speaker source translating my work first and then have a native speaker target work on it to discuss on why the native speaker source has used certain words and so the NSS can correct the NST if he gets carried away.

When it comes to Polish, without really knowing any, but having spent several weeks with Poles, I think there is the problem that it is an extremely intricate language, very dense with a lot of cases and suffixes that slightly change the meaning of things. If you get the meaning totally, then you've got the problem that it destroys the flow of the language as you need a lot more words than you should use. And then there is a kind of hidden anger, sense of depressed quashed superiority and honour that is really difficult to capture. Don't know about the modern generation (they've probably lost it a bit), but the older generation certainly still has it. Different than the Czechs for example. The Czechs are entrepreneurs and they make do, the Polish wallow i melancholy. Difficult to understand why you would get stuck in the times about 100 or 200 ago when you were a great nation. In the meantime, everyone is moving forward. Dutch writer Marcellus Emants captured that astonishingly well in his Polish character Oszinsky, but I suppose it's difficult to understand.

Without any doubt, translation is an art. I don`t think we could stop using our native language.

If it comes to Poles, it`s rather impossible to answer your question. Melancholy is one of the polish features but there many more, such as ability do overcome all the obstacles in order to achieve a goal.

[astrum]

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