/lit/ - Literature

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.

>>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.

>>20368044
based if true.

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

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

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

>translator is a box making beep-boop noises

>>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.

>>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.

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

>>20368016
Made me think of this lol

>>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.

>>20368044

true soul of an artist

>>20368044
How do you publish your translations?

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

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

>>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.

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