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Input-Output or conveying the meaning? | ||
Tags: Translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4035 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 1 of 17 29 May 2013 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello guys,
so I was wondering whether, when you speak a foreign language, translate, or interpret with it, you take an input-output approach to the translations of the words from L1 or use your own words to convey the same meaning... I hope I made myself clear enough :) Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6523 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 17 29 May 2013 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe. Are you speaking about more or less litteral translations? If so, then I'm all for keeping as close to the original as possible even if a 'free' translation in some cases would be more elegant (when judged with the standards of the language of the translation). Of course there are cases where an expression in the original text can't be translated directly word for word, but then you translate fixed expressions into fixed expressions almost as if it had been words. And even then I would go for the solution in the target language which betrays the original formulation least. And I have seen enough good and loyal translations to know that this isn't an impossible demand to put on translators. Totally free translations where even the order of the phrases is brought into jeopardy are a betrayal of the original work.
Edited by Iversen on 29 May 2013 at 6:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kaptengröt Tetraglot Groupie Sweden Joined 4158 days ago 92 posts - 163 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 17 29 May 2013 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do input-output. I don't think a translator is an "editor", they have no right to add or remove things from the original work, or re-word them to make them sound prettier. I do this even for casual translations.
If it's my own writing or thinking, then I don't care. But if I'm translating something from someone else, I always try to make it a very close translation. Of course, if I am translating it for language learners then I make it an even closer translation than I normally would. Edited by kaptengröt on 29 May 2013 at 6:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4178 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 17 29 May 2013 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion there are some phrases you can't translate word for word, but should be translated with the exact equivelant.
An example that has always made me laugh. "It's raining cats and dogs. " In greek that sounds like a monstrous plague from heaven or something. You have to translate with an equivelant: It's raining chairlegs/priests/parrots. (Pick one) How does that sound in english :) Edited by renaissancemedi on 29 May 2013 at 7:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4556 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 17 29 May 2013 at 7:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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This all really depends on what sort of translating / interpreting you're talking
about. Obviously, for language learners a translation that is as close as possible to the original grammar would be ideal. A translation of a literary work, on the other hand, has to balance shades of meaning in different words / phrases, style, even cultural references (although that may be debatable). An overly direct translation can suck the life out of even Dostoevsky or Homer, which in my opinion is a greater loss than the loss of some nuances in the original. You just can't have it both ways. Technical translation, pedagogical translation, and interpreting are all entirely different matters and carry their own contradictions, albeit none so important (in my opinion) as with literary translation. Also, just speaking in the L2 really is a completely different topic, and you shouldn't associate it with translating or interpreting. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4178 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 17 29 May 2013 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Traduttore traditore :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4950 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 17 29 May 2013 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
I recently learned an idiom in Turkish that is quite different from its English equivalent that made me smile (and I understand there's something very similar in Greek, too): Tencere yuvarlanmış, kapağını bulmuş (or Tencere yuvarlandı, kapağını buldu.) Literally, it's "a pot rolls and finds its lid", but in English we simply say "They're perfect for each other." or "They're made for each other." I'm sure we've had other threads here on HTLAL discussing idioms, but it might be fun to start another one. The differences are always fascinating to me. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4829 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 17 29 May 2013 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I translate mostly articles related to one small medical/nursing/home caring field. I
always try to stay as close to the original meaning as possible. It is tricky sometimes, as even some of the English medical terms are used differently in different countries. And sometimes, even though rarely, I need to make a larger change to the sentence not just to make it "prettier" but to make it digestible in Czech. When it comes to literary works, I can only speak of what I have read and I can give two opposite examples. Mr. Kantůrek translates Terry Pratchett into Czech and he does marvelous job. His translations are very sensitive to the original. And he does use Czech to add something new where it is not only possible, but as well totally awesome. Such as the names, where Czech offers much larger playing ground with all our diminutives, synonymes, slang, older words, names taken from neighboring languages etc. And as there are the awesome author's notes on the bottom of the pages, there are as well appropriate (and funny) translator's notes. The opposite: there are many. One is the criminal translating Fred Vargas who deliberately changes whole mood of the described scenes because the person can't get courrage, for example, to translate "Merde!" as "Do hajzlu!" or "Kurva!", which is an appropriate thing the character is trully saying at the unhappy moment. Instead, you have three grown man in their crisis cursing like three years old. And that is just one example. The whole books feel totally different as their style and sentences get changed more than would be appropriate, in my opinion. The style is much more straightforward. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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