#translation talk

[theodysseyofhomer]

i get a lot of questions about which homer translations i recommend and what's the most "faithful" and it's kind of funny because you are asking a lay reader, so to speak. also you are talking to someone who grew up with biblical literalism and is constantly, actively deconstructing that approach to ancient, translated texts. i really think my personal fascination with translation is inseparable from that context. but since i can't completely step outside my context anyway, who's to say?

all this to say—being "faithful" to a text doesn't mean what i thought it meant, what i was taught it meant, when i was a child. translators have a lot to balance—how do you translate the meaning of the original, while also translating some of the feeling the original audience might have had, while also translating the metaphors of a world removed from the present? different translators put different elements forward. they may sacrifice what another translator would consider more important. to be sure, not all concerns put forward by a translator have equal merit. but they have to make choices, and they can't help but make choices. because they aren't separable from their context, either.

if you're interested in ancient literature, i don't think you should be searching for unbiased translations (which don't exist). i do hope you seek to understand what a translators' concerns (conscious or not) may be. and if you do that, and you care enough about translation work to read widely, you will intuitively learn more about the compromises and failures and successes of translation than i can describe to you, in my muddled way.

[gwynsplainer]

Thinking about how The Man Who Laughs is not the best translation of the title L’Homme qui rit but it is kind of the title I’ve inherited bc I don’t believe in retranslating titles (ultimately any degree of name recognition is more important imo, at least with a work that has been read in English by that name for so long). Smile and laugh just don’t have the linguistic relationship that sourire and rire have.

Etymologically it’s more like if we (in English) called a smile a “sublaugh” or an “underlaugh,” so that “laugh” could be understood as a direct step up, ie an exaggeration, of a smile. But we don’t! Thus I’m forced to admit that at least in some schools of thought, perhaps including my own, a better translation would be The Man Who Smiles, The Man Who Grins, or dare I say, The Grinning Man.

[tonyglowheart]

Random translation thought, but I don't love 掌教 zhangjiao being translated as "Sect Leader."

To me, that's too similar to "Sect Master" and the differences between "Master" and "Leader," aren't distinct enough in English, and while they both functionally head and lead a sect, it's kind of like the difference between having a king and having a governor, sth like that...

Or hm, maybe more like the difference between having a headmaster vs a head teacher (which actually is a pretty good analog for the translations of 宗主 vs 掌教, but cannot work in Eng since the terms are too scholastic).

Either way, the difference between "Master" and "Leader" to my eye is too much of a half-step differential and in some cases the nuances may even be negligible, when really, the like connotative difference between a zongzhu and zhangjiao I feel like are greater, at least a "full step." Like if you had a zongzhu and a zhangjiao next to each other, the zongzhu should feel like it's a "higher" level even if they both functionally lead their sects.

I wonder if "Sect Head" works for other ppl the way it does for me. I feel like the difference between Sect Head and Sect Leader is more distinct, with Sect Head feeling like it's a "lower" level than Leader, so it gets to that "full step" of connotative difference between "Sect Head" and "Sect Master." Sect Head to me says they lead their sect, but are not necessarily the "master" of it. Whereas Sect Master is ofc the master of the sect. It may be a matter of semantics, sure, but words both reflect and convey meaning, and I think the shades of nuance here in the orig CN are interesting to think about and see how it changes one's interpretations.

[elecalice]

I need to do more English to Spanish Translations (And I'm available)

ENGLISH

I need to resurrect my English-to-Spanish Translation blog, @electraducciones and complete my pending translations. Although the current videos I've translating are essays and reviews. Long and with a lot of words. So I'll try to compliment my blog with translations of shorter videos. Maybe more ColeyDoesThings videos. I love her videos.

I feel that translating is a good idea for a extra income while I'm not drawing in digital. An income is really appreciated since I don't have a job, and well, my family isn't doing well financially for years.

I really hope I can provide Spanish subtitles to a Youtuber that I like their content.

I hope that I can help translating something into English. I'm free to talk and see my schedule, so that I can see if I'm going to translate your work into Spanish.

I'll be glad to help someone with Spanish translations.

ESPAÑOL

Necesito resucitar mi blog de traducciones, @electraducciones y continuar con mis traducciones pendientes. Aunque los vídeos que estoy traduciendo son ensayos y reseñas. Largos y con muchas palabras. Podría complementar el blog con traducciones de los vídeos de ColeyDoesThings. Adoro sus vídeos.

Me vendría bien porque necesito una fuente de ingresos cuando no puedo hacer dibujos digitales. Un ingreso valioso ya que actualmente no tengo un trabajo y bueno, la situación económica no es tan buena desde hace años.

En serio espero proveer subtítulos en español a un Youtuber de habla inglesa que adore su trabajo.

Espero que pueda ayudar a otros a traducir sus trabajos en Inglés al Español. Con gusto podemos hablar al respecto, ver los deadlines y horarios, para así hacer el trabajo.

Con gusto quiero y puedo proveer traducciones.

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[dearimasu]

Desde o momento que nasceste / Sempre te amei!

Desde o dia em que nasceste / Sempre soube que te amei! <- This doesn't work. I dont know japanese so if i try to hail-mary this line i run the risk of losing the writer's original intent.

Hm? Oh yeah im dabbling with different ways i can word/translate a line. Eh.

[shithowdy]

if your "original story/rpg" idea is rooted in the premise of "what if [existing franchise] was good?" then just start over. i am not kidding. your ego is like insulation spray foam being inserted into the cracks of the premise-- sure it fills the gaps, but it's beyond ugly and everyone can see it.

[ffcrazy15]

Someone needs to do an analysis on the way the Kung Fu Panda movies use old-fashioned vs. modern language ("Panda we meet at last"/"Hey how's it going") and old-fashioned vs. modern settings (forbidden-city-esque palaces/modern-ish Chinese restaurant) to indicate class differences in their characters, and how those class differences create underlying tensions and misunderstandings.

[remxedmoon]

y’know what? fuck you. *UNGRAYSCALES YOUR ISATS*

no wait come back there’s greyscale versions under the cut :(

[prodigaldaughteralice]

The easiest code in the book, the only one I got on my first read-through (I’m gonna go back with a notebook to get at the rest), and genuinely made me tear up.

[jinikaris]

felix joining hyunjin's instagram live // november 24th, 2024

hyunjin trying to remember the word for quesadilla with felix's help + hyunjin being suddenly rizzed by the australian accent ♡

[theodysseyofhomer]

I see the original, and my translation, as a promise, or even an enticement, in the first line: Dear Listener, stay with me, because you won't be bored by this character or this poem.  Who doesn't love disguises and schemes? Who doesn't love a long con, at least in narrative? The narrator is promising us, implicitly, that we’ll get an inside scoop on a character whose many layers, turns, names and disguises won’t be visible to everyone he encounters. Uncomplicated characters are a hard sell, if you want the adult listener to stay with you for many hours of story. Complexity, sign me up. I am not the least bit original in seeing the Homeric Odysseus as a complex and multi-layered character, who arouses our intense interest and intense empathy – and who is viewed in very different ways by different characters within the poem, because he contains multitudes. Homeric Odysseus is a very different and far more appealing character compared to the often simpler and often more purely evil Odysseus we find in some other ancient sources (like the scheming sophist of Sophocles' Philoctetes, or the cruel Ulysses of the Aeneid). To me, “complicated” doesn’t suggest either “good guy” or “bad guy”: it’s a promise that this poem doesn’t stoop to those implausible simplifications.

[gwynsplainer]

Every time I work on my translation I find an unfamiliar word/phrase and google it only to find that Victor Hugo is the only person on written record for having used it, the one example being that exact particular context I am trying to decipher.

[molinaesque]

By killing her mum in a mercy kill, she's doing exactly what the Ghoul did to Roger. She's learnt from him. She has turned into him. When she said, "I'll never be you," maybe that's not true. And in that moment, when she shoots her mum, it means so many things. It means 'I'm coming with you.' It means. 'I f*cking hate you, but I have turned into you, you were right.' It means she's letting go of her golden centre. I want the audience at the end of the show to wonder if their hero is still a good person. I don't know who she's gonna be in season two, but this is what happens when you break the unbreakable. I don't know who she's about to become. [...] I'd be down to play it either way. - Ella Purnell (x)

[kaos-living]

Headcannon that Jean just pretends he doesnt know english if he doesnt want to talk to people. He does not care if that person knows he speaks english. Yes hes pulled this on Jeremy before.

[fwoopersongs]

Randomly rolling in because I see a mention of 静夜思 and it's many iterations!

~ textual instability ~ (it's more likely than you think!!!!)

I find it interesting and super helpful to not hold on too hard to the idea that the versions of the poems and lyrics we read today are exactly what they were when they left the minds of their creators all those hundreds of years ago. There was probably never a true or 'accurate' version to be found out there at all xD

How did poets - with their varied social class, economic status and hence access to materials and tools - compose poetry, record poetry? We know Emperors probably had scribes 24/7 hanging on to their every word live, but what about when someone walking in the rain, a poor ordinary scholar, a relegated official, a minister on horseback or a lady on a boat are struck by inspiration? All they'd have to rely on is their own memory! Or maybe the memories of people fortunate enough to hear them speak a work into existence at the time xD Who knows? It could have been just a very everyday occurrence. Our lives are so far removed from theirs 🥺🥺🥺

And then! When does the work find its audience? How does it get transmitted? Is it repeated by friends casually in conversation? Is it sung in entertainment houses? Do people hum it in the streets? Does it get written in someone's little copy notebook, or did a husband murmur it to his wife? Did someone scribble an exiting new find in a letter to an appreciative friend in lands distant? Does the poet write it down when they finally got to writing implements and did they change their minds and swap out any words, or rewrite a line? Who compiles it all in the end and how is the work reproduced? Along the way, were there errors introduced? Did someone with a brush or coal pen miss a radical, or copy in an annotation? Did the hand of someone who carved and put the printing stamps together slip? Or did someone else down the road think the poem could be improved? Perhaps that it needed a title? Did manuscripts barely survive chaos and wars, or did someone keep it in moth eaten box for fifteen years and more?

I'll stop here. You get the idea xD

So if you've ever seen poems with multiple versions, multiple attributions or even different titles - it's probably any combination of those reasons and even weirder ones that we'd never believe unless it happened under our noses.

Some very famous examples

静夜思 by Li Bai and it's various versions (too many to write xD)

题西林壁 by Su Shi and it's two versions (远近高低各不同 vs 到处看山了不同)

七步诗 allegedly by Cao Zhi and its dubious origins (煮豆燃豆萁... vs 煮豆持作羹...)

赋得古原草送别 by Bai Juyi (离离原上草 vs 咸阳原上草)

It's often an extremely wild (though fun) experience trying to trace these branches. I hope readers don't ever dismiss it as just being a minor difference in wording. Every poem that's reached us today is so precious, as is the story of how it got here. I mean - what d'you reckon are chances of something we're writing right now getting into the hands of someone living a thousand years and more after we've died?

Embrace ancient poems, lyrics and prose and the journeys & transformations it's taken them to get in your hands!!!

PS: If you're interested in hearing how poetry sounds when it is sung, here is a playlist of examples. Obviously it's not going to be anything like in ancient times xD. But the thought that somewhere on this planet right now, there are people who still interact with poems in this way is so amazing.

I'm a casual reader of ancient Chinese poetry and translated Chinese poetry xD But I find Xu Yuanchong's translations so fun hahahha. He makes them rhyme! Maybe give him a try too?

the last post abt translation… literally think abt it in relation to mandarin poetry a lot… so here a couple of examples

1. this is one of the most famous poems, written by li bai

床前明月光 Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng [bed] [front] [bright] [moon] [light] Bright moonlight before my bed 疑是地上霜 Yí shì dìshàng shuāng [suspect] [is] [ground] [on] [frost] I suppose it is frost on the ground. 舉頭望明月 Jǔ tóu wàng míng yuè [raise] [head] [look] [bright] [moon] I raise my head to view the bright moon, 低頭思故鄉 Dītóu sī gùxiāng [lower] [head] [think of] [old] [home village] then lower it, thinking of my home village.

translation taken from here. there’s rhythm and rhyme (AABA) here! classic 5 character structure!

2. there’s also a whole BOOK ‘three character classic’ (三字经) which is entirely written in triplets of characters (and yes a Classic™, even i can recite maybe the first few pages)

this is the first few lines, copy pasted from wiki

人之初 (rén zhī chū) People at birth, 性本善 (xìng běn shàn) Are naturally good (kind-hearted). 性相近 (xìng xiāng jìn) Their natures are similar, 习相遠 (xí xiāng yuǎn)   (But) their habits make them different (from each other).

like this takes so much skill to construct…

3. chengyu!! idioms/proverbs basically. example: 画蛇添足 (to add feet when drawing a snake) which means to add to something unnecessarily. a lot of them are four characters and so many of them have stories behind them. which is so intriguing to consider in terms of translation because how would you translate these? literally (draw snake) or the meaning? or would u have to consider the cultural context of the language you’re translating into? which option would preserve the original text’s intention or is that not the point of a translation?

4. oh refer to this ‘nineteen ways to look at wang wei’. excellent examples of translation in practice and what it loses/adds.

it’s just so interesting to me - there’s an oral tradition for kids to recite the more famous ‘classic’ poems and books, and that inherent rhythm i associate with nursery rhymes is embedded in the language that shapes how things are written…. how are u going to translate that and preserve it accurately? & this is just a couple of thoughts on a language i’m familiar with, just thinking about what translations i’ve read from other languages that have lost some of the original intentions and that i’ll never get to fully appreciate is WILD