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Inter-Scandinavian translations-how good?

 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk Post Reply
montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4827 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 1 of 2
26 August 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged 
Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, are famously, if arguably, intelligible to speakers of
one or more of the "other" Scandinavian language (perm any 2 from 3, sort of thing).

Nevertheless, I assume Norwegians normally prefer to read novels in Norwegian, Swedes
novels in Swedish, etc, if they can.

I haven't looked exhaustively, but I have seen that at least some popular novels have
been translated from one Scandinavian language to another. I don't have any "feel" for
how common this is.

An English native-speaker like myself might assume that they could be translated with
extreme ease, since they are so close. But is that actually the case? When I thought
about it a bit more deeply, I got to thinking that actually, to produce a "good"
translation is always a skilled job, even between languages that are close, and a
slipshod job might produce something that is practically unreadable (understandable,
but that people might not want to read).


So, what is the situation?


The relevance to language learners is that learners of one Scandinavian language can
easily widen their scope if they include translations into their Scandinavian TL from
another Scandinavian language. But this is only worth doing if good translations
are available.
1 person has voted this message useful



tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5452 days ago

1349 posts - 2292 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 2 of 2
26 August 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged 
Most people prefer to read in their own language and popular novels are indeed translated. I believe the translations
are mostly done by professional translators. I don't know if they are better or worse than other translations, but I'd
guess they vary in quality just like translations between other languages.
3 persons have voted this message useful



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