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Translating my Grandfather’s biograpy

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Re: Translating my Grandfather’s biograpy

#31

Post by stared »

I’ve used AI models a few times, primarily for translating song lyrics for personal enjoyment or translating Facebook posts and other content.

When it comes to translation, context matters a lot. Translating a single paragraph without considering the broader context is often suboptimal. A better approach is to provide additional material that gives the translator more background information and the overarching goal.

One effective method I’ve found is using the Cursor editor:

1. Organize your content in a directory, ideally as Markdown files.

2. Include clear instructions on the style and purpose of the translation. For example, a literal, word-for-word translation differs from one aimed at conveying emotions or artistic intent. A .cursorrules file can provide global context and guidelines. When I edit blog posts, I use this one: https://github.com/stared/stared.github.io/blob/main/.cursor.... For a biography, it would be different.

3. Translate paragraph by paragraph, with some manual oversight, to ensure consistency and quality.

Re: Translating my Grandfather’s biograpy

#32

Post by ElevenLathe »

dmurray wrote: post #9
ElevenLathe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at translations as works by themselves. I don't think it's possible to recreate the feeling of experiencing a work in its original language without actually learning that language. One truly cannot experience Shakespeare unless one reads him in the original Klingon. That doesn't mean that translations are useless, but you're kidding yourself if you think you understand the phrase that translated to "smells of"…

I would watch the movie adaptation of a book I enjoyed, or vice versa, but I wouldn't read a book in translation that I'd already read in the original, and I don't think many people would. (I might read the original after the translation). So in some sense a translation is less of a unique work than a film adaptation. Classical scholars are an exception here, who might read Homer in half a dozen translations. But tha…

To each their own. I've read books in my second language that were translations of English books I'd already read. To be fair, that had been mostly pedagogical. I've also read multiple translations of the Illiad, for example, and don't know any ancient Greek. I've also read modernizations of Shakespeare.

Art is a complex thing, and doesn't really respect the commodity form. The same "work" can be totally different to people with different experiences, skills, neuroses, etc. You can read the same book twice and enjoy it, or not, differently each time. People enjoy live music exactly because each performance is different. Ultimately we're all trying to wring meaning from our lives, and art is a tool to give you some leverage in that work.

Re: Translating my Grandfather’s biograpy

#33

Post by JoeAltmaier »

card_zero wrote: post #26
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the intent. If I want to learn about a culture and language, an objective translation is what I want. E.g. I want to learn the idioms of the time and place, not have them changed by the whim of the translator to something similar but perhaps changing the intent If I want to persuade or illuminate the topic, then by all means a more approachable translation with modern idiom is more useful. An example I…

That's the etymology of redolent. To be redolent of high technology, taken literally, means to smell similar.

Cool! But then there's the 'lamp' part. The idiom is a little more indirect - doesn't 'smell of' high technology. Just smells of it's lamp.

Re: Translating my Grandfather’s biograpy

#34

Post by macintux »

dhosek wrote: post #19
incompatible wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a narrative just a way of presenting facts? Given facts, you can write a narrative. The more facts you have, the more detailed the narrative can be.

Not exactly. Peter Turchi came up with the analogy of mapmaking for narrative which really goes a long way to making sense of this since in both it’s about being able to find a sensible way to connect the details in a usable way.

I’m reminded of a disagreement here probably a decade ago. Someone felt debates were won with facts; I disagreed, and feel that facts are not nearly enough to determine a course of action.

Of course, political debates were more useful when we could come to some loose agreement on what the facts are. Even that seems impossible today.

Re: Translating my Grandfather’s biograpy

#35

Post by dhosek »

emmelaich wrote: post #24
dhosek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translating poetry is, in many ways, an impossibility, which is why the best translations are by poets and not linguists as they’re essentially writing a new poem with the skeleton of the original.

Relevant and entertaining: Why Shakespeare Could Never Have Been French by Tom Scott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUnGvH8fUUc

Not quite what I was expecting—I was thinking that it was going to be because English has a somewhat weird history, being a Germanic language that’s incorporated a rather large amount of Latinate vocabulary between the Romans and the French. This allows for differing registers in language that don’t exist in other languages because there’s a choice between Latinate vocabulary and Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, something which Shakespeare also made great use of.
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