h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I heard this am that Anthony Beevor's new book about The Spanish Civil War has already been published in Spanish and has leapt to the top of the bestsellers list."

Ah, someone else listening to R4 this morning!

Indeed! I'd be rushing out to buy a copy, only his 'Stalingrad' is still staring at me from my pile and making me feel guilty.

don't have much on the go at the moment, too much reading of course texts going on!
Only one I have that stands any chance is a translation of the philosophies of Kant. And I'm not overfully expectant of finishing it.

Hati, I work with a lady from Estonia and she recently got a load of books from home and said.... it's too much bother, she prefers to read in German!

(on and to Edward's German friend whose kids don't speak Geran. Shame on him!)

Here most of the bestsellers seem to be translations. I don't know, as someone just said, so many books,so little time! But then Ithink it could be that a lot of German writers that I heard of (well... the three of them) write "literature" rather than just plain ol' fiction. That could be true of other German authors.

It's a pity that there isn't a Booker for translations only (isn't it just for works written in English?) That would be good.

I've read chldren's books translated from AmericanEnglish into German and they have been excellent (The Very Hungry Caterpillar and others by Eric Carle) but I try to stay away from that sort of thing.

>>It's a pity that there isn't a Booker for translations only (isn't it just for works written in English?) That would be good.

The Booker is normally for Commonwealth writers in English, but occasionally opened up to the US. Their international prize started tast year and will be bi-annual. It's not exclusively for works in English...but I'm assuming that the non-English works will be judged in translation. I think the deal with the regular Booker is that the publihing houses put forward their recommendations. The international one last year was for lifetime achievement, so I don't know who proposes them. Since last year, two of the nominees (Bellow and Lem) have died.

As for my friend who hasn't taught his kids German...Yes Shocking! You'd think that anyone would snatch at the chance to bring up children bilingually. Apart from anything else, the older one is dyslexic and has various other behavioural problems. Settling him into a new school is going to be 'challenging.'

(Actually...I suspect it's more parenting problems than his own behavioural problems).

Didn't the Nobel Prize for Literature go to an Esperanto poet once?

Just been reading this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1781004,00.html
a bit about the problems of translation and the way different languages shape the works. In this it is about translating comedy from english to german and why many english jokes wouldn't work because of the language construction.

Be interested what the bilingual german/english speakers think of its conclusions.

Hey Bel,
Followed your advice and clicked on Askh2g2 to 'add my 2 cents' and who do you think I meet on the first conversation that I click on?

Firstly, is it alright to reply to a conversation that is more than two days old? i.e. are conversations different from messages?

About books translated into English, try reading 'The Count of Monte Christo' or 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas - translated from the French Original. My all time favourite is 'War and Peace' from Tolstoy's Russian original - the most loveable character Natasha.

And Sho, I do understand your 'on now off now' relationship with Oskar of the Tin Drum. He drove me insane with his metal drum. I have had the book for 5 years now and have never ventured beyond the half-way mark. You have a feeling of stagnation while reading that book. I haven't had the courage to touch my copies of his other books 'Cat and Mouse' and 'The Dog Years'.

If you want to read a book on mentally challenged characters, try the classic 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

Sorry for the blunder guys, I was replying to some other conversation.
God knows how I landed here?

Hey Bel,
Followed your advice and clicked on Askh2g2 to 'add my 2 cents' and who do you think I meet on the first conversation that I click on?

Firstly, is it alright to reply to a conversation that is more than two days old? i.e. are conversations different from messages?

About books translated into English, try reading 'The Count of Monte Christo' or 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas - translated from the French Original. My all time favourite is 'War and Peace' from Tolstoy's Russian original - the most loveable character Natasha.

And Sho, I do understand your 'on now off now' relationship with Oskar of the Tin Drum. He drove me insane with his metal drum. I have had the book for 5 years now and have never ventured beyond the half-way mark. You have a feeling of stagnation while reading that book. I haven't had the courage to touch my copies of his other books 'Cat and Mouse' and 'The Dog Years'.

If you want to read a book on mentally challenged characters, try the classic 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

I've often wondered about how much gets lost in translation - especially with poetry - and how strict publishers about hiring people to translate books, also how well translators are paid.

Seems to me that translating a novel would be a lot of very hard work and translators would have to be not only totally bilingual but also be quite good writers themselves in order to 'capture' what the original writer wanted to say, without them changing the style and feel of the book. Quite a tall order, I reckon.

An aside . . . when I watch English films with Spanish subtitles here it sometimes makes me cringe when I see subtitles totally missing what was actually said, on occasion, saying something totally different! I suspect a similar thing often happens when translating novels.

Back to poetry - does anyone think it is actually possible to translate poetry well?


az

Well, I heard of a French guy married to a Greek lady, living in Greece with his wife and a toddler. He never knew and doesn't know any Greek, and moreover doesn't seem to want to change this situation either. Furthermore he insists that, so as not to confuse the child, they should speak only one language at home, thus... French . If the offensive language filter wasn't on I would tell you my opinion on that person's methods.

Why should people translate poetry in the first place? I think it is too much dependent on the language it's written in to be translated. Would one actually enjoy the same feelings while reading a poetry and a translation thereof?

On the other hand, I have to say that if I read, say, English poetry, I may be happy to find some French translation somewhere to read at the same time, if only to have some hope to understand what's going on in the original text in the first place. It's hard enough in one's native language sometimes

I think that's rather shameful and such a waste, Toybox. Bilingual couples I know usually make sure their kids grow up knowing at least two languages.

A couple I knew in Salamanca (father Japanese, mother Spanish) have lived both in Japan and Spain. When they lived in Japan and their daughter was attending school there, they always spoke Spanish at home. Then when they moved back to Spain, they always spoke Japanese at home. The result is that their daughter speaks both languages totally fluently and can even write in Japanese characters since she went to school there. And they have also made sure that she learned English.

Another person I know from Switzerland grew up learning four languages almost all at once. Her father was Italian, her mother Swiss German, so she learned to speak in both of these languages at home before she even went to school, where from the start she also studied French and English. So when she came to Spain to study Spanish she picked it up in about five minutes!


az

I don't actually know any 'specialised' literary translators, but I believe they're paid a fixed fee and then a commission based on book sales.

However, when translating - it does help if you can talk to the original author and get a second take on what they're trying to say from time to time. Plus, in certain circumstances you're not trying to directly translate - you're reading and understanding a phrase and then writing something with the same spirit - even if the words are completely different. It's always a tightrope act between translating the spirit of a phrase and translating the actual words on the page - and they're not always compatible.



Most of my work is technical - and written by engineers (so the original text can be pretty ropey in places), but on the occasions I've had to produce 'literary work' I find it extremely interesting as its a far greater challenge. Having said that - I doubt I've the patience to sit down and work on a 500-odd page novel for months at a time.

<> (Toy Box)

I came across a copy of Lorca's A Poet in New York that had the Spanish version on one page and the English translation on the other, and I found the translated bits not nearly so beautiful somehow. Though I guess for people who are never going to learn to read Spanish it at least gives them a glimpse into 'what is there'.


az

As well as being arrogant, that father is ignorant. Children have no difficulty whatsoever in picking up more than one language at a time.

Poetry: That's another thing! I have no idea how people manage to translate it, but people do. Years ago I went to a signing/ reading by Yevgeny Yevtuschenko (I thinke he was probably the world's best selling poet at the time). He read in English and was accompanied by his translator. He got the translator to read one poem which he'd thought would be impossible to translate. It was about a railway jorney as a metaphor for the journey through life and featured the names of various halts on the Transiberian. I remember the last line:
'And at the end, Onleybury'...which does, indeed, sound like the name of a railway stop.

The worst translation I can think of is the Fitzgerald translation of Omar Khayamm:
'A jug of wine, a book of verse
And thou
Beside me in the wilderness
And wilderness is paradise enow.'

'Enow'?!

A while ago I heard about an English actor who was doing his one man show at a Shakespear festival in Armania. At a big festival banquet, everyone had to make toasts. He proposed 'To England's greatest poet.' The other participants castigated him. How could he say that Shakespear was England's poet? He was just as much theirs! They, of course, knew him in translation.

And how would one translate this - into any language? http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/burnsnight/poetry/haggis.shtml

I understand that this discussion is Europe specific. But in India it is very common to learn multiple languages. In schools right from the age of say 8 the students are taught 3 languages. The first language, - that is the medium of instruction (English if it is an English medium school or the local language), the second language - Hindi- i.e. the national language; and third language - the local language (or English if the medium of instruction is the local language.

I myself can read and write in 4 different languages and can speak seven.
Not very uncommon among Indians who are brought up in the Metropolitan cities like Bombay etc.

<> (Whiskey)

I've only ever done simple translations here, usually medical articles for publication in English medical journals - and have to agree about being able to talk to the writer! Even using the wrong preposition at times can totally change the meaning of a sentence.

I wonder if most people who translate novels get to 'check back' with the author.


az

On the other hand - as an example of what *can* be done...
http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/translations/index.html

Es brillig war. Die schlichte Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-mümsige Burggoven
Die mohmen Räth' ausgraben.