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Listening-Reading system

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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siomotteikiru
Senior Member
Zaire
Joined 6111 days ago

102 posts - 242 votes 

 
 Message 257 of 489
03 August 2007 at 3:57am | IP Logged 
Who’s a translator? A guy who wants to make some money at the expense of the author.
Who’s a publisher? A guy who wants to make big money at the expense of the author and the translator.

Some authors want to make some money at the expense of the reader.
Some of the authors write ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Some of them are the only ones who write really well.

Money is the most important goal both for the translator and the publisher. Love of literature is a contradiction in terms for them. No wonder they cheat. At OUR expense, literature lovers.

1 person has voted this message useful



Zhuangzi
Nonaglot
Language Program Publisher
Senior Member
Canada
lingq.com
Joined 6778 days ago

646 posts - 688 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 258 of 489
03 August 2007 at 8:40pm | IP Logged 
Long before I could read Russian I enjoyed reading Russian novels in translation. Many is the work I have read in translation, and I still do for languages that I cannot read. I respect good translators. Publishers, book distributors and bookstore owners all provide useful functions.

I can walk into a bookstore and find works from all over the world, translated into my language. This enriches my life. As to what constitutes good literature or good writing, that is for people to decide for themselves.

We would be far worse off if we had a culture commissar deciding what constitutes good literature, and how much income should be earned by authors, translators, publishers and book sellers. The market will decide.
2 persons have voted this message useful



kinoko
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6386 days ago

103 posts - 109 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, English, Japanese, Spanish
Studies: German

 
 Message 259 of 489
03 August 2007 at 10:10pm | IP Logged 
Who’s a translator? A guy who wants to make some money at the expense of the author.
Who’s a publisher? A guy who wants to make big money at the expense of the author and the translator.

Some authors want to make some money at the expense of the reader.
Some of the authors write ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Some of them are the only ones who write really well.

Money is the most important goal both for the translator and the publisher. Love of literature is a contradiction in terms for them. No wonder they cheat. At OUR expense, literature lovers.


Your statements sometimes are really absurd. If no publisher existed we and you would have never read most of books. If no publisher existed writers would never be able to make a living. If no translator existed people would never be able to read books in other than their own language. Nobody can master all the languages of the world let alone to a level necessary for reading a novel. Thus translation is necessary to enjoy literature in most of the cases. I can't believe I'm even writing such an obvious thing on a language forum, but I found your remarks offensive towards two categories (to which I don't belong, just to make it clear) whose work is vital in fields of education and culture in general. Money is not their goal. It's a job you know. One of those noble activities impling preparation and hard work in order to eat you dish of pasta in the end of the day and support you family. I guess, I hope, you have a job too and receive some money for doing it, I guess there's nothing wrong with that. The real shame would be if the only way to receive a wage was with activities unrelated with culture. If that was the case then few people indeed would be able to dedicate their time and proficiency to those fields.

As obvious as it gets...
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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6955 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 260 of 489
03 August 2007 at 11:38pm | IP Logged 
I think her point is that sometimes the translator does not translate the work as faithfully as we might like. The publisher, whom we might hope would hold the translator to a high standard, may cut corners to save money, such as having another person review the accuracy of the translation. The point isn't that they shouldn't make a buck, but rather that at times making the buck trumps doing work of the quality that someone would do purely for love of literature and the desire to communicate the original authors ideas as clearly and accurately as possible.

If you don't do a side by side comparison of the translation and the original work, you may be unaware of the liberties the translator has taken.

One final word in support of what siomotteikiru said earlier. Do you know that the American video rental retailer Blockbuster has "cut" movies? That is to say, they are censored. If you wonder why everyone was raving about a movie and you didn't think the video you rented was so great, it may be more than the movie hall experience that you are missing. I have been extremely disappointed to rent a DVD that I saw in the movie theater only to find that the most powerful scene had been removed. The scene involved neither sex nor violence. After serious questioning, the manager of the Blockbuster store admitted that their movies are censored because they are "a family store". He suggested I check out NetFlix if I wanted to see uncut movies. Hopefully NetFlix won't end up being owned by the same conglomeration and decide they need to filter what we see as well.

Edited by luke on 03 August 2007 at 11:51pm

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FSI
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6109 days ago

550 posts - 590 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 261 of 489
03 August 2007 at 11:41pm | IP Logged 
Speaking of film censorship, the difference between Léon and The Professional is (to paraphrase Twain) akin to the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
1 person has voted this message useful



siomotteikiru
Senior Member
Zaire
Joined 6111 days ago

102 posts - 242 votes 

 
 Message 262 of 489
04 August 2007 at 12:25am | IP Logged 
Sure, it is very respectable, to make a living, I mean.

As to my job:
I’m a cleaner, I kill stupidity.

As to translators:
I wouldn’t say I would kill all of them, but I would send to hell the majority.

As to publishers:
Their place is in a museum.

By the way,
there are three kinds of people:
1. they’ve read “The Karamazov Brothers”
2. they haven’t read it yet
3. they will never read it.


1 person has voted this message useful



Eve
Triglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 6425 days ago

67 posts - 67 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English, Spanish

 
 Message 263 of 489
04 August 2007 at 6:24am | IP Logged 
Siomotteikiru, why you have to be so snobby?
It is a pretty friendly forum and a lot of people come here to get some help in learning new languages but some of your posts getting to the points of being offensive and snobby without a reason.
In this forum we might have different definition of "kinds of people"
1. they've studied a foreign language
2. they haven't studied it yet.
3. they will never study a foreign language.


1 person has voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6659 days ago

4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 264 of 489
04 August 2007 at 12:28pm | IP Logged 
This got me thinking. Even if all I have is "bad" translations, that must be better than nothing, right? How can I know if a translation is "bad", especially in the beginning stages?

Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 04 August 2007 at 12:32pm



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