Translations -- validity Re: Great Works

Yes, and just one question, anyone actually read the original in Russian when writing that Oxford Guide?

If she really left out things, made her translations directly without revising and dictionaries, then I doubt the quality of them. One needs to think about words, the connotation of them and one cannot do that in one go.

An easy read should not be reached by leaving things out or even worse, manipulation. As Nabokov said (and there is not much I agree on because he was arrogant, but that I do): 'The worst degree of turpitude is reached when a masterpiece is planished and patted into such a shape, vilely beautified in such a fashion as to comform to the notions and prejudices of a given public.'

The brilliance of long sentences should not be sacrificed by one who can't make sense of them. If one cannot make sense of those sentences, then one needs to read again and again and again until one understands to then convey the meaning, in also a brilliant sentence in the target language.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

I find the translation of forms of address like 'Herr' or 'Monsieur' (except of course the realia) unnecessary and foremost, taking the cultural reference away. But obviously, there are certain precedents in certain languages. I believe that Madame Bovary stays the same in English where obviously it is translated in Finnish.

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It does indeed, although Anglo readers obstinately adhere to their own stress patterns and thus end up sounding like they’re talking about some ‘Madame Ovary’, or something. :cool: French president Sarkozy suffers similar indignities, I hear.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

I find the translation of forms of address like 'Herr' or 'Monsieur' (except of course the realia) unnecessary and foremost, taking the cultural reference away. But obviously, there are certain precedents in certain languages. believe that Madame Bovary stays the same in English where obviously it is translated in Finnish.

No, I am not suggestion that 'Deutschland' should be kept that. But Berlin should stay Berlin or Brussels should stay Brussels.

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I'm afraid I still don't understand what is the basic difference there why "Deutschland" should be translated but "Herr" should not... I respect your opinion, but I'd just like to understand the reasoning behind it :)

Haha, Madame X. Yes, Mr Sarkozy also suffers from it... It hadn't occured to me about Bovary, but now you say it, it sounds quite funny. :biggrin5:

@Annamariah:

I see forms of address as the first layer of a culture. If one translates them, one takes away the first cultural reference.

If one is translating Russian, one does not translate 'Zdravstvuyte, Nikolay Petrovich' into 'hello, Mr Petrovich' (or I sincerely hope not). If translating War and Peace, that would be appropriate though, as it is taking place Regency and before. So we can hear Elizabeth Bennet saying 'Good day, Mr Petrovich', not to mention all the girls that should be addressed differently. One could even opt, if there are two 'zdravstvuyte's in one row, to transcribe one in Latin script, and translate one. At any rate, the name and patronymic is a special form of address, unique to Russian culture. It is not hard to understand and it is not translated into 'Mr' which would be the English equivalent.

'Monsieur/Mr', 'Herr', 'Madame/Mme', 'Frau', 'Mademoiselle/Mlle' and 'Fräulein' are not a name, but are also unique forms of address to French and German culture. So there are in other cultures. Translating them takes away the little thing that is left of that culture at first sight in a text. We do not translate currencies either, apart from when it is for children whose scope is not so large. Why not? Because it leaves in the text a certain reference that people might be speaking in the target language, but that we are in another country really.

If there is a name for a city in another language, then it can be translated. Venezia in Italian becomes Venice in English, or Firenze becomes Florence. But there are a whole lot of cities which do not have that. Bordeaux stays Bordeaux, Novosibirsk stays Novosibirsk only transcribed in Latin script. It is not that we can't understand about which city the book is.

The same I find it goes with forms of address. What does it matter that it is not translated? It keeps the first cultural layer in, it is the first thing pople notice: how people address one another, and it is not even hard to understand.
Have them address one another as public school boys and the whole thing becomes an Enlgish traditional village. Yet, we are not in England and people might speak like the English (it cannot be helped), but at least they have kept their way of addressing like the Russians keep it for some strange reason. I wonder why?

Again I see no logical reason for wanting a 'mister' instead of a 'monsieur' in a text. It makes a huge difference.

Kiki:

I still think there must be something wrong with my comprehension :blush:

I don't think we are talking about the same thing, considering your example of translating "Здравствуйте, Николай Петрович" into "Hello, Mr. Petrovich". "Николай Петрович" is a name, and I think it should be translated as one. If it was "Здравствуйте, Господин Петрович", translation "Hello, Mr. Petrovich" would be, in my opinion, appropriate.

"Mister", "miss", "Herr" and "Fräulein" are not names, but words, common nouns, so I can't see why they should not be translated if there is an equivalent in the target language, especially in cases when in both languages the way of addressing people is relatively similar.

If it's okay to use a translated proper noun when there is an established one (Deutschland -> Germany), why wouldn't the same apply to common nouns used in addressing people? The manner of using said nouns or names comes through even if the words themselves have been translated.

And about currencies - many of them have translations too. Before Euros the Finnish currency was "markka", but in English "mark". In Finnish we don't talk about francs or liras or roubles, but we say "frangi", "liira" and "rupla" instead. They are realia that have established translations - in this case by means of domesticated orthography.

There is obviously something wrong with my principles then... I must be unorthodox ;)

"Господин", wich you would translate as 'Mr' is not 'Mr' as such in its English quality, but is a more polite, formal use of 'Mr/Sir'. It does not qualify in its use as normal 'Mr' in English. "Николай Петрович" is said to a person when he is not really known or considered to be familiar with me. Let's say a neighbour. As far as I know, we do not use "Господин" with it which would be very polite indeed. As such, ''Николай Петрович" is not merely a name, as we do not address people in English, 'Hello, Mary Smith, how are you today!', if they are neighbours or something, but it is a form of address which might involve a name but which is not only that. If I were to translate it into 'Mr' I had the possibility that the formal thing would go out of it, or that I would end up with a weird combinaton of titles and 'Mr' which is also possible. The Russians keep their forms of address because they are names, but other nations have them translated.

We do translate currencies into a form we know as the Finnish one, but we do not change their name as such.

You see, where you, I think, see 'Herr' and 'Monsieur' merely as a word, I see them as a currency, something unique that is understandable and that is to be kept. But I must be one of the few then. At least in English. The few translations of things I have read in Dutch kept the forms of address, but I can have been lucky.

I find that otherwise, one ends up with a text that is neither fish nor meat (as they say in Dutch). A weird combination of people who seem to be English, but are not due to their ways of acting.

I don't know, I'd keep "Господин" in Latin script with a footnote.

Good question. Well me being young and 5 language speaker; I think that translated works are at best mediocre. Imagine reading Irène Némirovsky's la Suite Française in English, would the story make sense? The answer is obviously no, no I wouldn't for many of the expressions there are used in a French way (for example, poser un lapin means literally "put a rabbit" well if you translate expression-wise, it should be "Stood someone up"). Or even Murakami's works. If you read his books in Japanese--their original language, you would see how DIFFERENT his way of writing is compared to the translated versions.

@Katy North: That's why I prefer fansubbing over company subbing :]. I find company crappy compared to fansubbing for the latter notes the Japanese culture if the sentence isn't clear enough for the viewer.

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Originally Posted by scaltz

Good question. Well me being young and 5 language speaker; I think that translated works are at best mediocre. Imagine reading Irène Némirovsky's la Suite Française in English, would the story make sense? The answer is obviously no, no I wouldn't for many of the expressions there are used in a French way (for example, poser un lapin means literally "put a rabbit" well if you translate expression-wise, it should be "Stood someone up").

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You may just have defeated your own argument by providing a good translation of what you said was impossible!

I don't see how "stood someone up" is mediocre compared to "put a rabbit". Is there anything about the context that would make it a better phrase?

Both phrases are rather strange. Any thoughts on origins? Is "stand someone up" a shortening of "stand someone up to be shot down"? If so, could the rabbit expression come from "put [forward] a rabbit to be shot down"?

If the rabbit theme was important, a good translator might come up with something like "she stood him up, he felt like a rabbit being shot to smithereens." (or something better!) The point is, any nuance in the French, of meaning or metaphor, can be translated into English, or do you have a counter-example?

Serious polyglots, like George Steiner, do not dismiss all translations as mediocre, and I really don't see why good translations cannot be made of all literature.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

You may just have defeated your own argument by providing a good translation of what you said was impossible!

I don't see how "stood someone up" is mediocre compared to "put a rabbit". Is there anything about the context that would make it a better phrase?

Both phrases are rather strange. Any thoughts on origins? Is "stand someone up" a shortening of "stand someone up to be shot down"? If so, could the rabbit expression come from "put [forward] a rabbit to be shot down"?

If the rabbit theme was important, a good translator might come up with something like "she stood him up, he felt like a rabbit being shot to smithereens." (or something better!) The point is, any nuance in the French, of meaning or metaphor, can be translated into English, or do you have a counter-example?

Serious polyglots, like George Steiner, do not dismiss all translations as mediocre, and I really don't see why good translations cannot be made of all literature.

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I agree with the other dude.

Can you give a similar meaning, sure - but is the art of prose lost? yes. if you speak french fluently (which i happen to) there is beauty in his example, it flows extremely nicely. if you say "she stood him up" - does it mean the same thing... well, LITERALLY - sure, but does it have the same impact? no - so does it really mean the same thing? I don't think so.

It is definitely valid that 'to stand up' someone is a mediocre translation that does the phrase sadly short:

'"Poser un lapin" signifie de nos jours ne pas aller à un rendez-vous, sans prévenir la personne qui nous attend. Cependant, le sens était autrefois différent. En 1880 par exemple, cela voulait dire "ne pas rétribuer les faveurs d'une jeune fille". En effet à cette époque, le "lapin" désignait un refus de paiement. Par la suite, il a également désigné un voyageur clandestin. L'expression, sous sa forme actuelle, serait apparue vers 1890 chez les étudiants, et pourrait provenir de "laisser poser", qui signifie "faire attendre quelqu'un"'.

'The phrase "poser un lapin" in our time means not going to an appointment with someone without warning the person who is waiting for us. However, the meaning of it was different in past times. In 1880 for example, it meant "not returning the advances of a young girl". In fact, then, the '"lapin" (rabit) signified a refusal of payment. Later, it also indicated a clandestie traveller. The expression, in its present form, would have appeared round about 1890 amongst students, and could result from "lasser poser" ("to let pose/stand"), which means "to let someone wait"'.

So, how does 'stand up' meet this type of expression then? It originated in 1902 and results from 'stand up' as courageous, mainly in fist fights. How is that to be paired with a nasty thing that provokes sadness or lack of money as 'lapin' in French in its first meaning then?

It becomes even more difficult if the writer starts to play with his expression and starts to compare his character to a rabit, or the actor to a magician or something. Where are you then with standing up?

At any rate, one will not come to a result with dodgy etymology and I would not choose to insert a comparison into the text as that ruins the original sentence in itself, which is (to me) an insult to the original writer.

The quality of a translation cannot be measured by the possbility of reading it easily. It should be measured by its closeness to the original, in form, word-use, style, imagery and cultural preservation.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

You see, where you, I think, see 'Herr' and 'Monsieur' merely as a word, I see them as a currency, something unique that is understandable and that is to be kept. But I must be one of the few then. At least in English. The few translations of things I have read in Dutch kept the forms of address, but I can have been lucky.

I find that otherwise, one ends up with a text that is neither fish nor meat (as they say in Dutch). A weird combination of people who seem to be English, but are not due to their ways of acting.

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So I take it that to you "Herr" and "Monsieur" are realia, not just ordinary common nouns? This is again about where to draw the line - even words that have seemingly direct translations hold different connotations in different languages and are never quite identical in their meaning.

I still disagree with you about that "neither fish nor meat" - just because certain words are translated doesn't mean that the foreign culture couldn't come through by other means. A text is always, first and foremost, an entity, and it's the overall feeling that counts.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

I don't know, I'd keep "Господин" in Latin script with a footnote.

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So you would recommend using footnotes in the translation of literature?

Personally I think footnotes should be avoided as much as possible, as they interrupt the storytelling and distract the reader from getting absorbed in the imaginary world. There are of course some cases where a footnote is almost the only option and thus reasonable way to explain someting, like in Jane Eyre where they play a charade consisting of two words: "bride" and "well", together "bridewell". That would have been impossible to translate without completely rewriting a long passage of the book unless a footnote was used. But in general I would only use footnotes as a last resort.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

The quality of a translation cannot be measured by the possbility of reading it easily. It should be measured by its closeness to the original, in form, word-use, style, imagery and cultural preservation.

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But don't you think that turning a great, fluent masterpiece into a clumsy read is doing injustice to the book as well?

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

So I take it that to you "Herr" and "Monsieur" are realia, not just ordinary common nouns? This is again about where to draw the line - even words that have seemingly direct translations hold different connotations in different languages and are never quite identical in their meaning.

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I agree that it depends where one draws the line, but I think, these days the line is drawn by the people who teach translation. Mind you, I don't say it out of a grudging thought or something, but where in past times writers translated fellow writers and produced some really lovely things (no doubt out of respect for thei colleague), now things get translated by people who sometimes do not even know what a book looks like. I don't say that to spite you, though, ;) just because I have friends who do it. The only ever thing they have read is one thing by Kafka in German, 'because [they] had to for class' and then they stopped reading quality for ever... At the same time that my friend was doing 'literary translation' as a subject, I had read more things and thought about it longer than my friend who was translating it! It doesn't mean that that goes for everyone, but I found Constance Garnett's story shocking to say the least.

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

I still disagree with you about that "neither fish nor meat" - just because certain words are translated doesn't mean that the foreign culture couldn't come through by other means. A text is always, first and foremost, an entity, and it's the overall feeling that counts.

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I agree with the overall feeling, but I believe too much of it goes if forms of address are not kept where at all possible. All French books I have seen that employ English forms of address or swearwords are to me a strange coming together of English ways and a French story. And it is also like that for me with films. Somehow, it doesn't work,

Mind you, I am not used to things being entirely in my language, though. In Northern Belgium, everything is subtitled so we hear those forms, swearwords and what not in the original language, which, I am just guessing, makes me more sensitive to such things.

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

Personally I think footnotes should be avoided as much as possible, as they interrupt the storytelling and distract the reader from getting absorbed in the imaginary world. There are of course some cases where a footnote is almost the only option and thus reasonable way to explain someting, like in Jane Eyre where they play a charade consisting of two words: "bride" and "well", together "bridewell". That would have been impossible to translate without completely rewriting a long passage of the book unless a footnote was used. But in general I would only use footnotes as a last resort.

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I agree with you that they should be avoided as much as possible, that they interrupt the flow. But firstly there is no reason why one should read them, and secondly, there is no reason why they should be too long. A mere explanation about 'gospodin' would do. And for the rest of the book there would be no need anymore to address the word. That said, an introduction can be given as to formal and informal in Russian culture, I don't know, whatever is relevant to the book in itself. Otherwise, i that is not desired, then there is still the internet to look it up.

There are even classics with footnotes in the original language, so I can't see any reason why they should be avoided in a translation. If only to clarify certain motifs they are great. But, some of them are tedious and unnecessary like the ones in my copy of Notre Dame de Paris.

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

But don't you think that turning a great, fluent masterpiece into a clumsy read is doing injustice to the book as well?

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That is not necesaarily the case. A clumsy read is also not an option, but the two, authenticity and readability, can be paired, although reservations should be made as to language pairs. I completely understand that some languages are difficult to translate and that it is of course doable, but only if the style is relinquished for example. Certain languages are easier to translate into because they are richer than others. To me Dutch is a nightmare and it is my mother tongue. It just does not have enough scope. Either you end up being hopelessly out of date, or otherwise with a hopelessly small vocabulary. But English is great. However I guess that depends on the language you tanslate from.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

I agree that it depends where one draws the line, but I think, these days the line is drawn by the people who teach translation. Mind you, I don't say it out of a grudging thought or something, but where in past times writers translated fellow writers and produced some really lovely things (no doubt out of respect for thei colleague), now things get translated by people who sometimes do not even know what a book looks like. I don't say that to spite you, though, ;) just because I have friends who do it. The only ever thing they have read is one thing by Kafka in German, 'because [they] had to for class' and then they stopped reading quality for ever... At the same time that my friend was doing 'literary translation' as a subject, I had read more things and thought about it longer than my friend who was translating it! It doesn't mean that that goes for everyone, but I found Constance Garnett's story shocking to say the least.

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That example of a friend of yours is truly horrible. A translator needs to know both source and target languages exceptionally well - and of course go deeper into the text than someone who just reads it for fun.

People who teach translation each have their own ideas on what is a good translation. So far I've had five different translation teachers, and each of them have had different teaching methods and they have emphasized different points in evaluating the translation. My two favourite teachers (one taught translation from Finnish into English and the other one from English to Finnish) always went through the whole text in the class after we had all translated it, and then we would discuss each point separately. We would compare our different translations and explain why we chose to translate it the way we did. Only rarely any "right answers" were given on how something should have been done, and a certain thing was deemed wrong usually only if the translator had clearly misunderstood the text at that point. Another teacher made us always read each other's translations and comment on them. It gives one perspective to see other people's translations and hear what reasons they have to back up their translation choices, it really makes one think about aspects they never would have thought of otherwise.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

Mind you, I am not used to things being entirely in my language, though. In Northern Belgium, everything is subtitled so we hear those forms, swearwords and what not in the original language, which, I am just guessing, makes me more sensitive to such things.

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Finland is a small country with a language that is not really spoken outside our borders we can't afford not to know other languages. Also we have two official languages, so being monolingual isn't really an option anyway. For example if you go to the movies, the first row of the subtitles is always in Finnish and the second one in Swedish, so it's three languages at one go, though not everyone pay attention to all of them at the same time, of course. But anyway, only children's tv programmes and movies are dubbed, everything else is subtitled, so Finns are exposed to foreign languages from the young age.

Yet still to me it would feel weird if the swearwords and forms of address were not translated. Though in case of words of address I guess the fact that addressing people at all is rare might help maintaining the foreign feeling in translation. I've never seen swearwords left in the text the way they are, that would be weird. There are differences between those, too, in nuances and so on, and you could hardly expect the reader of the translation to be able to swear fluently on foreign languages :p

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

That is not necesaarily the case. A clumsy read is also not an option, but the two, authenticity and readability, can be paired, although reservations should be made as to language pairs. I completely understand that some languages are difficult to translate and that it is of course doable, but only if the style is relinquished for example. Certain languages are easier to translate into because they are richer than others. To me Dutch is a nightmare and it is my mother tongue. It just does not have enough scope. Either you end up being hopelessly out of date, or otherwise with a hopelessly small vocabulary. But English is great. However I guess that depends on the language you tanslate from.

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That is true, at least to a certain extent. You need a broad vocabulary to bring out the subtle nuances, or at least a language in which new words can be coined easily (like Finnish with all the possible inflections, suffixes and compound words). But even a vast vocabulary doesn't help that much if the difference between target and source cultures and languages is great. For example English has much more words than Finnish does, yet Finnish has dozens of words for different kinds of snow, ice, and frost that are just impossible to translate into English, because no such vocabulary exists in that language. Also in languages that are not related to each other structures vary greatly, which makes maintaining the style in translation even harder. Then one just has to decide whether they should try to convey the form or "feeling", the reaction that the reader of the original text has for the style.

Fascinating topic! I'm intrigued by this term: realia. Can you guys clarify it a bit more for me?

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Originally Posted by mkhockenberry

I do try to look for the oldest translation into English that I can find if I'm reading a translation, but that is my own rule of thumb.

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Really? Older doesn't necessarily mean better. (As a medievalist, I never thought I'd say that! :biggrin5:) You said yourself that languages are always evolving, so anything that sounds dated at the time of the translation (the oldest one you can find) will no doubt sound even more dated now. I think there's a lot to be said for modern translations, esp. now that English/Comp Lit departments around the country are beginning to see "translation studies" as a legitimate field.

One of the oldest translations I've read is Dryden's translation of the Aeneid (1697). His was one of the translations (along with Mandelbaum's and Fitzgerald's) that were constantly consulted in my Latin class in our own (petty) attempts to translate the original Latin. Though I think Dryden was a brilliant poet, I found his adherence to rhyming heroic couplets not only distracting, but also less accurate than other translations. Whenever translators insist on translating from one language's verse (Latin dactylic hexameter) to another (English alexandrines), I think there's a good deal of the original rhythm lost. And if they try to add in rhyme schemes on top of that, YIKES!

I'm interested to hear what others think of translating from verse. Do you think translators should try to keep verse in verse form, even if they translate to a (necessarily) different meter and/or rhyme scheme? Should they try to capture some of the rhythm of the original? Or should they do prose translations, sacrificing some style for the sake of accuracy? For me, the best translations have been those that keep verse form (mostly free-form or blank verse) without trying to insist on any rhyme scheme.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by ktr

I agree with the other dude.

Can you give a similar meaning, sure - but is the art of prose lost? yes. if you speak french fluently (which i happen to) there is beauty in his example, it flows extremely nicely. if you say "she stood him up" - does it mean the same thing... well, LITERALLY - sure, but does it have the same impact? no - so does it really mean the same thing? I don't think so.

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The beauty of the language *may* be lost, but maybe not. If the translator is a really good poet then you may retain (or even improve on!) the beauty of the original.

If the original writer is a giant, like Dante, then, of course, it is unlikely the translator will match the beauty of the language. But the transkation may be 'beautiful enough' (e.g., Mandelbaum.)

Surely it is reasonable for someone, with an interest in reading all the word's literature, to read Dante in translation than, say, spending many years learning Dante's Italian. Steiner, who knows more languages than most, has defended translation in exactly this way. He has said that if he was forced to read everything in the original languages then he would only be able to read the literature of very few countries, and he reads more than five languages at a greater depth than most people could even attempt.

The 'art of the prose' involves a lot more than the 'music of the language', it involves plot, narrative, dialogue, structure, content, imagery, .. and so on.. all of which can be translated, largely, without loss. This means that you can read a translation with great enjoyment, that is, you get sufficient 'art of the prose' to make it worthwhile reading a translation. And please don't say 'you can't'' as I know I can from my experience. Maybe *you* can't, but that's your problem, not mine.