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What makes a translation great?

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Re: What makes a translation great?

#41

Post by wolverine876 »

Daub wrote: post #35
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. This is why Ezra Pound and Christopher Logue were such good translators. Pound translated into English the Analects of Confucius, a bunch of Noh Plays, and many other works of Chinese and Japanese literature. But he was barely capable of reading Chinese or Japa…

Once or twice I have 'translated translations' of Chinese movie subtitles. The basic translation done by a Chinese native who speaks Engkish, with my contribution being to bash the English into shape. I do this in discusiion with the director. I wish more subtitles were done in this way. Rubbish subtitles are endemic in the industry.

I see that in other places too. I fear it reduces the films to the level of camp. Do the directors not think it matters? Do they not have easy access to fluent speakers of English?

Re: What makes a translation great?

#42

Post by wolverine876 »

nataliste wrote: post #31
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. This is why Ezra Pound and Christopher Logue were such good translators. Pound translated into English the Analects of Confucius, a bunch of Noh Plays, and many other works of Chinese and Japanese literature. But he was barely capable of reading Chinese or Japa…

I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it. Sure, they could talk about Homeric epithets for days and knowingly reference the "wine dark sea," but the actual ethic and humanity of the Iliad eluded them. And when you do get those aspects (as Logue did), the actual choice of idiom by the translator becomes irrelevant, whereas if…

> I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it

Homer's world is very alien to ours. I realized at one point, reading the Odyssey, that it is myself who didn't get it. There was a chasm between me and Homer, and if I wanted read and understand Homer in a meaningful way, I was going to have to cross it.

Unless I have personal expertise, how can I evaluate who 'gets it', Logue or others?

Re: What makes a translation great?

#43

Post by Yodel0914 »

haunter wrote: post #4

>A good translation wants to be read So much this. For example I think a lot of people would actually enjoy Iliad and Odyssey more if their first experience weren't in dactylic hexameter.

I'm quite enjoying Lattimore's translation of The Iliad. I've tried a couple of other translations which were not at all enjoyable to read.

Re: What makes a translation great?

#44

Post by lmm »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. This is why Ezra Pound and Christopher Logue were such good translators. Pound translated into English the Analects of Confucius, a bunch of Noh Plays, and many other works of Chinese and Japanese literature. But he was barely capable of reading Chinese or Japa…

Nah. If you want to write an original work of literature, write an original work of literature. If you're writing a translation, it should reflect the original, good and bad, and you absolutely need to understand the original language to do that.

Re: What makes a translation great?

#45

Post by lmm »

Dalewyn wrote: post #8

To answer what is a great translation, we first need to ask to whom it should be great. The readers? The only thing that makes a translation great for them is whether the translated text reads well. Whether the translation is accurate to the source material is irrelevant; the readers literally can't tell and don't care, that's why they are reading a translation! The publishers or whoever hired the translator(s)? The…

> The readers? The only thing that makes a translation great for them is whether the translated text reads well. Whether the translation is accurate to the source material is irrelevant; the readers literally can't tell and don't care, that's why they are reading a translation!

On the contrary, readers generally read a translation because they want to read a specific work, and/or experience the culture it's part of, but can't or won't spend what it would take to become fluent in the language themselves. If they just wanted to read something that reads well they wouldn't be reading a translation. So accuracy is something they care deeply about, even - especially - if they're poorly qualified to assess it.

> being a translator is terrible; the absolute worst thing about it is that the work is thankless. Whoever reads your translations simply can't appreciate quality

Well, yes. It's like sound design, or colour grading, or stage magic; when you do it right, the audience doesn't notice that you've done anything at all. It certainly takes a certain mentality to thrive in.

Re: What makes a translation great?

#46

Post by lmm »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #17

Only a truly great translator can fundamentally alter the meaning of the source and get away with it. (Well played, Ted Woolsey.)

When did Woolsey alter the meaning and succeed? Sometimes he found a true translation that was underappreciated by an ignorant fanbase (the notorious spoony bard), sometimes he did the best he could while constrained by censorship that still compromised the results, and sometimes he straight-up screwed up.

Re: What makes a translation great?

#47

Post by Daub »

wolverine876 wrote: post #41
Daub wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once or twice I have 'translated translations' of Chinese movie subtitles. The basic translation done by a Chinese native who speaks Engkish, with my contribution being to bash the English into shape. I do this in discusiion with the director. I wish more subtitles were done in this way. Rubbish subtitles are endemic in the industry.

I see that in other places too. I fear it reduces the films to the level of camp. Do the directors not think it matters? Do they not have easy access to fluent speakers of English?

I have seen this more in art house movies and frankly cant understand why it is not a larger issue. I once offered this service to a director I liked, only for him to refuse it. His final subtitles were atrocious.

Re: What makes a translation great?

#48

Post by VelesDude »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. This is why Ezra Pound and Christopher Logue were such good translators. Pound translated into English the Analects of Confucius, a bunch of Noh Plays, and many other works of Chinese and Japanese literature. But he was barely capable of reading Chinese or Japa…

This is why there are SO many translations of the Tao Te Ching. Some are very mechanical, others miss the point entirely. And then there are those one where it is almost like Poetry, they went beyond just the immediately presented content.

To that I would recommend the translation of it by Red Pine (Bill Porter), not only is is a wonderful translation but it does so much to add additional context via others commentary on the chapters through out the ages.

Re: What makes a translation great?

#49

Post by Dalewyn »

SunlitCat wrote: post #32
soundnote wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The translations in anime at least are unlikely to actually be worse, since a lot of the English anime translation industry are obsessed with inserting woke politics and cringey zoomer jokes into their translations and more or less hate the people who buy their products. There's a reason a lot of people are laughing at the activist translators losing their jobs to AI. In areas where the translators are actual, respon…

Although your comment is unnecessary strongly worded, you raise some very serious points. Especially Japanese - English entertainment media translations, it is very often pretty apparent that there is some kind of agenda behind translation of such works (even with translators admitting it them self doing so in comments / messages on different social media platforms). Something I just wonder is, why does especially th…

Japanese entertainment is among the more popular entertainment venues in recent years, and that means it's also a useful tool for political espionage. People interested in pushing political agendas would be fools to not exploit this as they would any other.

Hell, the distribution of Japanese entertainment across the world is in large part a Japanese government agenda[1] for diplomatic ends.

It's all politics.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan

Re: What makes a translation great?

#50

Post by Dalewyn »

prerok wrote: post #38
Dalewyn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: Am/was an amateur translator. I dislike translation notes. Translations are already a form of notes, so appending notes to notes is just bad form. Some translations can be so awkward or simply impossible that leaving a translation note becomes inevitable, but a good translator should not have to need them everywhere.

I would be interested to know what you think about translating word plays. One example. In LOTR there is a hobbit named Meriadoc, but his friends call him Merry, which is a shorthand for his name but also carries meaning. In one translation into my language, the translator opted to translate Merry into "Srečko", which is close in meaning. The connection to the original name is lost and the translator put that in the…

Word plays are by far among the most notoriously difficult pieces to translate, assuming it's even possible. Those kinds of situations are what I meant when I said some translation notes are simply inevitable.

Worse still is there might not be a "correct" way. Like in your example, one preserves the context while the other preserves the name. I'm sure we can agree both of them are critically important, but we (probably) can't have both of them.

Translating is a grueling job.

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