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/lit/ - Literature

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14948621 No.14948621 [Reply] [Original]

Can you ever really fully appreciate a book that's been translated?

>> No.14948633

>>14948621
Depends...is it poetry? No. Fiction or nonfiction? Usually, but it depends.

>> No.14948638

not when you don't clearly specify the conditions under which a thing is taken to be fully appreciated

>> No.14948651

>>14948621
Of course. Sometimes the translation is even better than the original. Gabriel García Márquez said famously that the English version of One Hundred Years of Solitude was superior to the original. I also have a Portugese friend who says he prefers the Book of Disquietude in English.
For non-fiction, whose meaning lies not in the writing style but in the literal interpretation of what is written, translation has absolutely no effect, assuming that the language one is translating into is rich enough to express the concepts from the original work. People who say 'learn x-language to read y-nonfiction book' are just stupid.

>> No.14948657

>>14948621
Books are not made of words alone.

>> No.14948669

>>14948651
>Gabriel García Márquez said famously that the English version of One Hundred Years of Solitude was superior to the original
kek impressionable rural man? Probably said it on advice of his US editor to sell more copies. He was in the wrong like many other times. You can read pretty much any part and see the original is better.

>> No.14948670

>>14948621
Reading translations is the most cuck thing you can do. You are literally reading someone else's interpretation of a work you have never read. Almost as bad as reading summaries or other secondary sources like companions without having read the original text.
Translations are fine to get a better understanding of a book that you have already read with its original meaning.

>> No.14948678

>>14948621
I enjoyed the Odyssey

>> No.14948680

>>14948621
No. You get the water-downed thought of the original author via the translator. In fact, you are at the mercy of the translator. As Cicero said, those who ask me how to study Greek philosophy, I tell them to go to Athens and learn the tongue.

>> No.14948681

>>14948651
This. Sometimes I start wondering, holy shit, I thought this was a translation, yet apparently it's not - oh wait, it is.
I'm pretty sure that the actual circumstances of 'translating' (having a contract with an editor, a short deadline or not, talking to the author or not, etc.) are essential. Sadly in some cases when a book is popular and/or excellent, people or editors wanna translate it too quickly.

>> No.14948687

>>14948670
Nah, even the greats read a translation once in a while for which they haven't necessarily read the original. You autists are insane.

>> No.14948695

>>14948621
the language is a symbolic system that refers to universal ideas. so yes. i would make a exception for poetry since the phonetics can be so important to its stylistic expression

>> No.14948696

>>14948680
kek modern Greeks can't understand ancient Greek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2fRTS8DZ8U

>> No.14948699

Can anyone fully appreciate any book?

>> No.14948702

>>14948621
can you fully appreciate the book if you're not the author?

>> No.14948703

>>14948696
Ancient Greek is basically a different language. It gets taught in schools but most people don't give a fuck about learning it. Educated Greeks can understand Ancient Greek.

>> No.14948713

>>14948680

I would think that philosophy is the most translatable; you can translate words/use loanwords etc, and retain the ideas the author has espoused.

>> No.14948727

if you understand your native language very well but then go and learn another language in order to read a book in the original language you may not be very proficient in such a language. So you might be better off reading it in your native tongue. There is the writer of the book and then there is the spirit. Spirit is a more Dynamic and complex reality. Some translators are very good at what they do and I'm sure it helps when they have a passion for the work they Translate.

>> No.14948736

>>14948727
Letter* or writing* >.<

>> No.14948750

>>14948680
You are simply a retard. Philosophy, unlike fiction and poetry, does not draw its meaning from the writing style. As long as our language is competent to express the concepts outlined in the text, there should be nothing lost in translation.

NOT TO MENTION: Most of the text of Greek philosophy was preserved through Arabic translations done centuries later. These are the Byzantium manuscripts. We have some Greek fragments from Egypt but these are not enough to reconstruct the entire text. So the idea that you have to learn Classical Greek to understand philosophy is fucking laughable.

>> No.14948760
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14948760

>>14948713
I agree with you at a certain level but people like Plato are tricky. The words he uses have multiple meanings and its up to the translator as to which one he chooses. For example, in ancient Greek, psychê means butterfly or soul or desire. Besides that singular example, many other nuances are lost in translation. Of course, not everyone is gonna be autistic about it like me.

>> No.14948763

>>14948750
t. monolingual

>> No.14948790

>>14948760

That's a good point. In that case I think a good translator should annotate and explain, though I don't envy someone who might have to go into pages and pages of explanation after deciding to use a word.

>> No.14948792

>>14948703
Then saying people to go to Athens is retarded.

>> No.14948808

>>14948792
when Cicero lived 2000 years ago, it was not

>> No.14948850

>>14948792
In our modern context, yes it is. However, modern greek is a helpful stepping stone to learning Ancient Greek as there are a lot of similarities and it is a lot easier to learn modern Greek.

>> No.14948884

>>14948760
The translators are not retards. They understand that words can mean different things based on the context. If I was translating a sentence like 'The spirit of the French people...' from English into another language I would know that 'spirit' here does not refer to an alcoholic drink, even though that is technically a synonym. Therefore I would translate it to mean 'soul', 'ethos', 'character', etc.. A pea-brained faggot like yourself could then come along and claim my translation is inadequate because the word 'spirit' can mean something different, but of course when you look at it in context the meaning becomes clear.

And I can't even handle the irony of you posting an ENGLISH definition of a Greek word to argue precisely that it is impossible to express that word in English. If it's impossible to express the word in English, how the fuck did that dictionary manage to express it in English then?

If you honestly believe this nonsense you have to simultaneously believe that it is impossible for anyone to ever learn a language because the process of vocabulary-acquisition when you learn a language is identical to the process of translation. That is, you compare the word with an identical word in your native tongue. For example, an angloid learning Italian learns 'Buonanotte' means 'Goodnight', and that is how he picks the language up. If this process is unreliable then it is IMPOSSIBLE for that angloid ever to truly learn Italian, and everybody is of necessity restricted to their native tongue.

>> No.14949011

>>14948884
not that other guy, and not arguing, but I think it would be interesting to have translations that just don't translate some words. Like, Plato in English, but psukhe remains psukhe. Or Heidegger with Sein and Wesen and (holy shit) Seyn. Not saying it would be good in itself, just an interesting addition to regular translations. But then a bilingual edition does the job too (they're rare in philosophy).

>> No.14949664

Can you ever really fully suck a dick?

>> No.14949676

>>14948884
hahahahaha philosophy is simple and it never gets muddied in translations ahahahaha trust me I'm well read hahahahaha

>> No.14950287

>>14948621
>>14948633
This. If the language it has been translated to is similar to the original, like romance to romance (bonus for Pt-Es-It chad triad) or Dutch to German, the answer would be very much yes.

>> No.14950340

>>14948651
>I also have a Portugese friend who says he prefers the Book of Disquietude in English.
What a fucking joke that guy is then. Pessoa's prose is not only impossible to translate well but his writing in Portuguese is spectacular and incommunicable in English.
>>14948633
The prose/poetry division as a marker of translatability isn't a good one. It doesn't really mean much anymore. Some prose is impossible to translate, some poetry is very easy to translate. In any case, translation fundamentally corrupts and mutates a text.
>>14948621
People can enjoy translations as separate entities, but not as substitutions. What they appreciate is another thing, they only just grope at the original to differing extents depending on several factors. This goes for ALL writing. Not just for poetry/fiction.

>> No.14950361
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14950361

>>14948621
yeah of course. you just have to toss the translated version into the garbage, learn the original language the text was written in and read it in the original language.

>> No.14950433

>>14948750
You are very misinformed, very little of the Greek philosophical corpus has survived only in translation.
If you want to have a better understanding of Greek philosophy, Greek is important.

>> No.14950496

>>14948750
>Philosophy, unlike fiction and poetry, does not draw its meaning from the writing style.
You are so dense and it's clear you're a monolingual. Meaning exists on several levels apart from syntax and diction. Study linguistics. All translation involves semantic modulation and a consequent corruption ensues. It doesn't matter what is being translated. At the very least study philology so you can have an idea of what the words you're using mean on some level besides the very superficial one you're working with. Also even if we granted you're garbage argument, you're still implying writers like Plato weren't poetic or careful about his word choice, it's just pure meaning right? Read Phaedrus and tell me Plato wasn't a poet. Anyone who thinks Greek can translate well hasn't learned any fucking Greek at all.

>> No.14950689

>>14950433
Most of Plato comes from Arabic/Latin translated manuscripts.

>> No.14950699

>>14950496
Name one (1) concept that is expressible in Greek but not in English. Just one.
>but I can't express it in English!
Use a diagram then. Use algebra. Use logical notation. But show me a single concept that is impossible to express in English but is possible to express in Greek.

If you can't you're just wrong.

>> No.14950709

>>14950699
It's not just about being able to literally replicate the meaning of a text my dude.

>> No.14950713

>>14950689
No, they don't. lmaooooo

>> No.14950731

>>14950709
It is with non-fiction. Of course the poetic elements to some philosophy are a pleasurable bonus, but when we are talking about philosophy the only essential thing is the conceptual meaning, which is obviously translatable.

>> No.14950743

>TRANSLATION BAD

>> No.14950780

Don't pretend to disagree with each other, guys.
It's possible to have a pretty good understanding and knowledge of a philosopher's thought through a translation, without ever reading one single word in its original idiom.
However if you're gonna study him more thoroughly, obviously you're gonna need to take his own language and very words into account.
You all agree with that and that's fine.

It's like - everybody agrees that translations are necessary and can be very good - and everybody admits that they're not a substitute for reading the original text. Yet we keep making up an unending quarrel. Oh well.

>> No.14950820
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14950820

>>14950699
As I said, meaning exists on several levels. It's not just about what a sentence refers to.

When you translate you lose almost all levels of meaning apart from usually bare reference and sometimes not even that. I'll give you an example with just ONE word to show you how fucked up translation is.

Take the word "Αλήθεια." (Alitheia). A translator would almost always render this word as "truth." But what does the word actually mean etymologically? How would an Ancient Greek have understood this word? It wouldn't have the connotation of the English word "truth" at all. The prefix "α" here indicates privation or lack, "without", the word stem is "λήθη" (lithe) which means "oblivion" or "forgetting." (The word would also recall the river of forgetting in Hades and all the emotional, spiritual and mythological connotation behind it). So the way an Ancient Greek would've understood this word is "without forgetfulness" or inversely "remembering" and probably would also have some image of the river of Lethe and the religion of his homeland in his head while he ponders "alitheia." This has metaphysical implications obviously if you'd read Plato, but literally the word just doesn't fucking translate. A translator would have to explain the Greek word to you for you to understand it; in other words, you'd have to LEARN some Greek to get it. Now here's the issue: Greek is one of the most etymologically rich languages in European history. You can dissect almost every word like this and break its meaning down. You can't just fucking translate that without losing a ton of meaning. And this is just one single word with no context. Now put it into the context of thousands of other words just like it. Translation is a huge barrier between you and the original text that can only be bridged through a deep philological study which would involve you learning the original language and a ton of stuff about history, culture, religion, etc. on top of it.

This is part of the reason Christianity is falling out of vogue. The richness of the New Testament is totally lost on people who don't know Greek. Same for the classics. Greek and Latin should be required studies by anyone who wants to be taken seriously academically and even just in general.

Just fucking learn Greek and see for yourself. You don't even have to master it, just learn a bit of it so you can get an idea. It's better to know what you're missing out on and be humbled then to arrogantly assume a bunch of random shit.

>> No.14950948

>>14950820
Another crock of shit. 'Derive', the English word, has its roots in Old French 'deriver' which means 'flow downstream a river/brook', but nobody who reads the word 'derive' in its normal context thinks of rivers or any shit like that.

I could spin a yarn like you and say, 'One must learn English if he is to understand English philosophy! When Locke used the word "derive", it instantly invoked the image of a river to the English readers! And of course, this river has mythological significance. The noble English reader, pondering the word "derive", would have doubtlessly thought of the River Styx, which separates us from Hades! Gasp, ye mortals, at the richness of this language!'

When in reality the word 'derive' was used to mean 'derive' how we regularly mean it and nobody thought of any rivers when they read it, nor was this connection even intended. And I trust the translators did an adequate job by rendering your word, 'truth'.

>> No.14951121

>>14950948
English is bastardized language and people aren't familiar with its etymologies when they speak. Though most skilled writers in English were basically philologists though and were familiar. Modern languages aren't comparable to ancient languages. Greek was purer. English is degenerate and semantically disassociated from its speakers. Plato clearly was aware of the etymological richness of his language since it's literally imbedded in the words itself. This imbeddedness is part of the reason ancient languages are so rich and modern languages like English (which is effectively a pidgin) are decadent. They built words out of pieces and knew what all the pieces meant. We inherit words from many sources and don't know what they really mean etymologically, hence why people can't even fathom the loss of meaning in translation (anglos are especially guilty of this since English is by far the most degenerate language in Europe, as you clearly demonstrate here). Basically, English speakers don't know what the fuck they're saying most of the time unless they're philologists like the great writers. Greek speakers did because it's plain for them and they didn't have to "think" about etymology, it was just obvious because they knew the language's pieces. Greek is ORGANIC. Many modern languages, especially languages like English, which is a purely utilitarian language made up of disparate units, are inorganic. Some languages are better than others at this. German is pretty intuitive, which is probably the reason it went on to become a great philosophical language. The Romance languages are less intuitive than their father language, Latin, but vastly superior to English in this regard. This might be part of the reason a language like French is more translatable than German, Greek, etc.

In other words, in an organic language like Greek etymological meaning was synonymous with semantic meaning. In an inorganic language like English etymological meaning might be lost, irrelevant or totally dissociated from semantic meaning. YOU CAN'T COMPARE THEM.

>> No.14951171

Read Walter Benjamin's essay on translation. There he explains that a translator's task is not to completely translate every word to its logical literal meaning, but to find words from the other language, that are better suited for the meaning behind the words that are being translated. And thus, a rich translation is completed, for the language now bears the characteristics of a work that was written in a different language.

>> No.14951177

>>14951171
>read jew
I stopped right there, buddy.

>> No.14951188

>>14948670
How tf am I supposed to read the canon when it's in like 20 different languages then? No time to learn all that.

>> No.14951200

>bitching about translations
Unless you're some genius you'll only be able to read originals in your native language and maybe 1-2 other languages, assuming you speak them fluently. Good luck limiting yourself like that.

>> No.14951229

>>14951200
I guess I'm a genius then because I'm literate in five languages. :)
>>14951188
Sorry but the canon is only seven languages. Also the canon doesn't matter. Who groups gay ass science and math books with literature? Or with philosophy? Fuck the canon. Fuck Bloom. Fuck "Great Books" lists.

>> No.14951238

>>14951200
Its not that hard to learn a new language to read in lazy nigger

>> No.14951249

>>14951177
Ironically, a Jew made the best critiques of German literature.

>> No.14951276

>>14951229
>>14951238
Congrats for being smarter than me then, but I just don't have the time lads, looking at my favorite books list i'd have to learn ancient greek, german and spanish to be able to "fully appreciate" it all. I'm 23, monolingual and just don't have the time.

>> No.14951323

>>14951276
You probably do have the time for Spanish. You can do it, anon. German and Greek are involve more effort though and I get time constraints for those two.

>> No.14951342
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14951342

>>14948621
Doesn’t matter to me. If a translation is generally deemed good I will read it, I’m already bilingual and I don’t have time to learn some shitty literally who language just to read a book that’s available in the ever-superior English form. You learn languages because they’re useful to you in your day to day communications, not because some posers on an anime forum told you it’s the better way to read a book

>> No.14951354

>>14951229
>I guess I'm a genius then because I'm literate in five languages. :)
Sure you are, anon. Sure you are.

>> No.14951416

>>14951323
Thanks anon. I've always said i'd tackle German though if I were ever to learn anything since my brother lives over there and is fluent, so I could talk to him in it I guess.
What languages did you learn? What would you say is the best method?

>> No.14951659

>>14951416
Spanish, French, Italian and Greek. I've dabbled in other stuff.

Best method is this:
1. DEVOUR THE VOCAB. Literally just start learning tons and tons of words. Try to learn them in context. This is 90% your time learning a language.

2. Assimilate the grammar. Try to learn it naturally, but understand it as just a set of rules for using the vocab. Vocabulary is the most important.

That's literally it. That's language learning. Vocabulary + grammar. Words + rules. The rest will come naturally.