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

>>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.

We - I mean we monolingual Brits - are prone to forget that multilingualism is the norm in many parts of the world.

I heard a radio programme a while back about schools in Finland. They interviewed a delinquent from the remedial class in an inner-city school. The interview was, of course, conducted in English.

<> (Satyajit)



Likewise, many Dutch and Swiss people tend to speak about five languages!

Knowing more languages just opens up your world so much! There are so many ways of expressing oneself in *this* language that doesn't even exist in *that* language. And vice versa.


az

It seems that sometimes, asking anybody could prevent terrible mistakes. Here's an example from Umberto Eco's "Mouse or Rat?":

Another time, in the [Italian] translation of [an English] psychology book, I found that, in the course of an experiment, “l’ape riuscì a prendere la banana posta tuori dall sua gabbia aiutandosi con un bastone”, that is: a bee succeeded in grasping a banana lying outside its cage with the help of a stick.

In Germany, when trying to exchange a shirt in a department store, I once came out with:
'Die Grosse ist unrecht'

The size is unfair...but 'unrecht' being what a young child would say.

Gaaaaaaa! That sounds like the sort of thing one of my intermediate English students might say. Someone actually got paid to write that???


az

oops, simulpost, replying to Toy Box.

az

Anyhow, that's a very good point, Edward, as often things simply don't translate literally. I get students doing this sort of thing all the time and then they say - 'but you understood what I meant, no?' - and I say 'Yes, *I* understood what you meant, and probably others might too, but you end up sounding like a total weirdo!'


az

we are spectres in the mist.

we are global experiment extrodinaire.

[email protected]

I picked up The Name of The Rose today from the library. No copy of Foucault's Pendulum though.

I'm suprised that the name 'Foucault' gets through the new profundity filter.

I believe that in literature, there are no translations, but rather adaptations of an original. The best "translations" are often written by other writers.

In German, there are two different translations of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, one done by Margaret Carroux and Ebba-Margareta von Freymann, and the other by Wolfgang Krege. The styles of those two versions differ greatly and it seems that you can even trace differences in philosophical standpoints... One example is that in the older (Carroux's) version, Sam addresses Frodo as "Herr Frodo" (master Frodo), whereas in Krege's, it is "Chef" - which is more like "boss". Krege used language as it was spoken in the 1990's, which many people found inappropriate. (On the positive side, Krege did differentiate different styles for different speakers, which Carroux had not done.) Neither translation seems fully satisfying.

So my suggestion is to read the original whenever you can.

Y.

(catch up post here)

Satyajit - I'm quite envious of your language skills, but don't worry, we don't have to be Eurocentric here.

TC - (was it you?) that Guardian article was fantastic, although I don't agree there are no German stand-up comedians. I only know the name Juegen von der Lippe (who is not to everyone's taste) but there are several more.

I recently read a book called Ein English Man in Köln which was about comedians here, sort of. Vaguely amusing - but I don't think it would translate well - mostly because you really have to know Germany well to understand it, and without German it is impossible to describe getting your Aufenthaltserlaubnis (residence permit) for example.

That page of Jabberwocky translations is fantastic. I'd love to hear someone read the Japanese version. But oh my.... some people need to get out more - there's a Klingon version

It's interesting about the German versions of LOTR - I've never looked at one, but I think I might get one out of the library. It must be difficult to give a faithful translation of something without putting your own slant on things. I don't think I could do it.

>> 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? <<

Shakespeare, of course, is best read in the original Klingon.

RF

Maybe - I have to admit that I've never even tried to read Shakespeare in a translation

I did English Lit A-level by correspondence course in the early 90s - for fun. (I was reading a lot and decided it would be good to have something to show for it)

King Lear was one of the Shakespeares (The Tempest was the other) and I was having a hard time visualising it (we did The Tempest as a production at school so I'd seen that a few times).

The local theatre had King Lear on, in German, so I went along and I was astounded:

a) at how fantastic the translation seemed to be (I'm not an expert)
and
b) at how well I understood it

From what I could tell the language used was what Shakespeare's German contemporaries would have used and it worked very well.

Further back in the mists of time I did Russian A-level. we had to study The Bronze Horseman by Pushkin. A fantastic wild fantasy, and the translation I had of that was astounding.

poop , swap out one of those astoundings for something else.