/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20368016]

>translator doesn't speak the language he's translating from

[Anonymous No.20368029]

This is an interesting phenomenon with regard to old poetry. I'm not convinced it is bad for a real poet to read several different translations and make their own, for example. S/he can get a wide sampling of the meaning meant to be conveyed and then fashion the stanzas according to the original prosody.

I guess that's a long way of saying I'd rather an informed poet than an unpoetic translator when it comes to ancient poetry.

[Anonymous No.20368044]

>>20368016
I have translated 100+ books from various languages, none of which I speak, into my own language. I use online dictionaries and translators then rewrite sentences to my own taste. I can make a decent living from this, although I work part-time in an office to ensure a stable income. Two years ago, I was nominated for a translation prize.

[Anonymous No.20368077]

>>20368044
based if true.

[Anonymous No.20368080]

>>20368016
A guy from Argentina, who doesn't speak English, translated Ulysses with a dictionary

[Anonymous No.20368084]

Me with Goethe right now. I preserve the Germaness of it pretty well I think.

[Anonymous No.20368090]

>translator doesn't speak the language he's translating from
>he also doesn't speak the language he's translating into

[Anonymous No.20368147]

>translator is a box making beep-boop noises

[Anonymous No.20368152]

>>20368044
>>20368080
It seems like translating from a language you don't speak with a dictionary would be way harder than translating if you actually knew the language.

[Anonymous No.20368170]

>>20368080
> translated Ulysses with a dictionary
That doesn't make any sense the novelty of Ulysses is that it plays around with the English language and its incorporation of Irish slang. A one to one translation to any other language would be pointless and shit.

[Anonymous No.20368175]

who cares what language the translator can or cannot speak. What matters is what language they can write. idiot post

[Anonymous No.20368179]

>>20368016
Made me think of this lol

[Anonymous No.20368192]

>>20368179
>Consulting the Septuagint to help with your Aesop translation is going to far
>Proceed to write a page long "footnote" autistically discussing the difference between trees and logs and how the Bible translators missed that the sign is a subtle joke.

[Anonymous No.20368546]

>>20368044

true soul of an artist

[Anonymous No.20368954]

>>20368044
How do you publish your translations?

[Anonymous No.20369065]

>>20368192
...I don't get the joke.

[Anonymous No.20369108]

>>20368179
What's the joke? Is it that log can also mean turd?

[Anonymous No.20369479]

>>20368954
I mainly translate lesser works of famous authors or forgotten/overlooked classics from world literature that either haven’t been translated yet, have been unavailable in translation for a long time or haven’t been widely read, so as not to draw too much attention. I mainly sell them to smaller, more ‘literary’ publishers (in my country this distinction is more pronounced than in the US/UK, so it seems anyway) that have a small but dedicated readership, who sell them in small print runs. Whenever anyone asks I say that I’m self taught in most of my languages. There have been numerous occasions where I almost got sussed out, in fact I’m fairly sure some of the people I deal with know, but I guess they either assume that I can understand and read the language but not speak it or they simply don’t care enough to confront me. Although I tend to avoid certain languages now as a result of the aforementioned.

[Anonymous No.20369491]

>>20368016
>Science popularizer does not understand the basics of math and science
Yep that's going in my cargo cult collection