Against Translation
libertiesjournal.com
Against Translation
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Re: Against Translation
#2> There was no doubt that there was a lot in our collective past that was shameful — though how this made us different from every other nation was never clear to me. What was clear was that feeling ourselves to be the worst was — like feeling ourselves to be the best — characteristic of our particular form of national narcissism. And I thought that, if we were going to turn our backs on our patrimony, we ought to do it consciously. We ought, at the very least, to know what that culture was, what it had been
Wise words.
Re: Against Translation
#3This was too long for me to understand. The author should just get to the point they want to make.
Re: Against Translation
#4I don't generally have a problem with long-form, but if your article has a title that implies there's an argument in there, I feel like you owe it to the reader to at least give some idea of what that argument is within the first 5 paragraphs.
Re: Against Translation
#5Of course it would be great to read books in their native language, but is it better to get a reasonable translation of a book, or no translation at all? That is the question.
If you take some authors with multiple translations over many decades, e.g. Proust or Hugo, you can see that the early translations are actually very rough, and only recently are we seeing very high quality.
The main problem is that language translation is forever imperfect. If you look at Proust's French, there is no direct translation into English for the way it is written because no English person writes in that manner, so the translator has to make a lot of hard decisions to make the book enjoyable.
My French isn't strong enough to read native Proust (god, I wish it was), but then you have things like Hugo which is 1800s French and I'm sure even modern French kids have some trouble reading it.
If you do read a translated book, PLEASE find the best translation before you purchase. I'll give you an example...
This Les Mis book has the same illustration on the front (public domain) as the musical poster, so it looks official: https://www.amazon.com/Miserables-Signet-Classics-Victor-Hug...
But it is a miserable 100 year old translation spruced up a bit. You will probably hate the book and hate your life if you try to read it. It boasts that it is unabridged because that seems like a thing you would want, but...
This new translation by Penguin is like night and day: https://www.amazon.com/Miserables-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp...
It is somewhat "abridged" because the translator took the bold step of tearing out 50 pages of the book - that are basically just the author going on a rant and has nothing to do with the story - and translated them and stuffed them in the appendix. This was a smart move, and went above their job title to produce a much more readable work.
tl;dr: read more great foreign books; always check you are getting the best translation before you start
Re: Against Translation
#6This was too long for me to understand. The author should just get to the point they want to make.
No post body was provided.
Re: Against Translation
#7I love reading books in their native language, especially when there is no translation available. It's like having a key to an exclusive world that others can't access. It is, however, quite a bit of work to learn a new language simply to be able to read works in that language and I'm not sure if it provides much value aside from a smug sense of being educated and multilingual.
Re: Against Translation
#8I don't generally have a problem with long-form, but if your article has a title that implies there's an argument in there, I feel like you owe it to the reader to at least give some idea of what that argument is within the first 5 paragraphs.
After reading the whole thing, I got the distinct impression that the author probably strongly dislikes readers who want (or are used to!) an argument presented in the first 5 paragraphs.
Re: Against Translation
#9Of course it would be great to read books in their native language, but is it better to get a reasonable translation of a book, or no translation at all? That is the question. If you take some authors with multiple translations over many decades, e.g. Proust or Hugo, you can see that the early translations are actually very rough, and only recently are we seeing very high quality. The main problem is that language tr…
My view on translations is that if literary luminaries such as Gabriel García Márquez and Vladimir Nabokov both think that the English versions of their work fully stand up to the test (which they are both on record as stating), then that is good enough for me.
I am not monolingual. I know what it feels like to read in different languages, and here's the thing: The words? The grammar? Easy. You can learn enough to stumble through a newspaper in a matter of months.
The culture behind the language? That is what takes decades to acquire, and if you don't have it, I 100% guarantee you will get a more accurate reading of the author's intent in a well-translated work than you ever would lurching your way though the native text.
Re: Against Translation
#10I don't generally have a problem with long-form, but if your article has a title that implies there's an argument in there, I feel like you owe it to the reader to at least give some idea of what that argument is within the first 5 paragraphs.
After reading the whole thing, I got the distinct impression that the author probably strongly dislikes readers who want (or are used to!) an argument presented in the first 5 paragraphs.
Fuck him then