/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21475147]

>non-English book's English title isn't just a translation of its original title

[Anonymous No.21475159]

>>21475147
Yes, Anglos call Extension du domaine de la lutte "Whatever."

[Anonymous No.21475177]

>A todo gas
>La jungla de cristal

[Anonymous No.21475210]

>Der Untergeher
>The Loser

>Précis de décomposition
>Short story of decay

>À la recherche du temps perdu
>Remembrance of Things Past

[Anonymouṡ No.21475302]

>>21475147
JAPANESE TITLE: 'Gogo no eiko' ['Afternoon tow'] Apparently it's a pun or something.
ENGLISH TITLE: The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

Well done translator.

[Anonymous No.21475378]

>>21475302
The English title is definitely more kino

[Anonymous No.21475389]

>Japanese: To Be Disqualified from Being Human
>English: No Longer Human

[Anonymous No.21475411]

>non-English book's English title is just the original language's title romanised
You just fucking KNOW its pseud BS when you see it.

[Anonymous No.21476921]

Original title: Sensei no Kaban (Teacher's Briefcase)
English title: Strange Weather in Tokyo

[Anonymous No.21476937]

>>21475147
So why do they do this? They do it with movies too. Is it just publishers thinking their own readers are stupid?

[Anonymous No.21476946]

>>21475147
>The English book's title is just the English title.

[Anonymous No.21477142]

>>21475389
Not a bad translation at all desu

[Anonymous No.21477234]

>>21475389
Direct translation sounds very technical. The official English title flows better, while keeping the basic meaning.

[Anonymous No.21478045]

>>21475147
>Rosemary's Baby
>La semilla del diablo (the seed of the devil)
The title translation is a fucking spoiler

[Anonymous No.21478073]

>>21475147
why are they like this, it should have been just a straightforward translation (the original is Le Rivage des Syrtes). plus there is shitty romance novel with a similar name.

[Anonymous No.21478440]

>>21475302
If you can't replicate the pun in English, why not come up with a different title that carries the same general feeling?

[Anonymous No.21478447]

>>21475389
"Failed Human Being" or "Failure of a Human Being" would still be within the range of literal translations, but I agree they don't sound as good as titles.

[Anonymous No.21478478]

>>21475147
>All Quiet on the Western Front
>it is actually not quiet at all, since there is a war going on, and the sound of regular detonations of artillery shells, hand grenades, mortar rounds and as well as constant small arms fire and intermittent screaming from the wounded and battlecries from the fighters
Whoever translated Remarque's title was a complete retard.

[Anonymous No.21478505]

>>21478478
The title is taken from the ending.

[Anonymous No.21478539]

>>21475147
Germany sucks at translating titles. In the two decades I've lived here, I've only preferred a single german title, and that was "women" by Bukowski- the german title is "das Liebesleben der Hyäne" which means "the lovelife of the hyena" all other attempts are laughably bad.

[Anonymous No.21478697]

>Ungeduld des Herzens (Impatience of the heart)
>Beware of pity
The "roll credits" moment. Also, imperative.

[Anonymous No.21478875]

>>21475210
>À la recherche du temps perdu
is the most beautiful title ever given to a book

[Anonymous No.21479250]

>>21478875
so true anon , the phonology and the angoisse of putting in one sentence a suffering that every human has experienced. Doesnt get better than that

[Anonymous No.21479822]

>>21475147
Sometimes the literal translation is impossible
Other times, the original title is a word play or a phrase that is untranslatable
And occasionally the main role of the title is to evoke some emotion/sound cool

[Anonymous No.21479828]

>>21475389
The Japanese one looks English to me

[Anonymous No.21479835]

>>21475389
>To Be Disqualified from Being Human
Your translation is much worse because it's even further from the original meaning than "No Longer Human".

[Anonymous No.21479840]

>>21478539
examples of bad titles?

[Anonymous No.21479845]

>>21478539
Yes lmao, Bergers Ways of Seeing is translated as something like Die Welt der Bilder in der Bilderwelt

[Anonymous No.21479854]

>English book's Japanese title adds superfluous details on to the original title
EN Title: Nature
JP Title: 自然論 (Nature Theory)

[Anonymous No.21479907]

>>21475147
The danish name for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is Gøgereden. Which is litterally just Cuckoo's Nest. Don't know why they chose to neglect the rest of the title.

Ian Flemings James Bond books got some wacky translations as well.

Goldfinger is Døden Må Vente. Which means Death must wait.

For Your Eyes Only is Strengt Fortroligt. Translate to english as Strictly Confidential.

The Spy Who Loved me is Jeg Elskede James Bond, or I Loved James Bond.

Octopussy is 100.000 er budt or 100.000 has been offered (refering to an auction house)

[Anonymous No.21479939]

>>21479907
Croatian TV does the same for movies, almost all foreign movies have different names, if anything they are changed just a bit
Good, the bad and the ugly one is the good the bad and the evil one

[Anonymous No.21479950]

[Anonymouṡ No.21479996]

>>21479907
>The Spy Who Loved me is Jeg Elskede James Bond, or I Loved James Bond.
That's so bad. TSWLM is a brilliant title and they completely ruined it just (presumably) so people would know it was a James Bond book and not a Mills & Boon romance.

[Anonymous No.21480027]

>>21479907
Just remembered another one which is the The Shining being translated as Ondskabens Hotel. Meaning The Hotel of Evil.
The Shing

[Anonymous No.21480121]

>>21479828
It's a literal translation. The original title is 人間失格.

[Anonymous No.21480248]

>>21475147
The Old Testament is terrible with this. The real book names are just the first words of the book

>Bereshit (in the beginning) -> genesis
>Shemot (names) -> Exodus
>Vayikra (he called) -> Leviticus
>Bamidbar (in the desert) -> Numbers
>Devarim (sayings/things) -> Deutronomy

sounds much less cool and mysterious

[Anonymous No.21480258]

>>21480248
*and he called

[Anonymous No.21481173]

>>21475302
栄光 (glory) has the same pronunciation as 曳航 (tow) and is a more common word, so you could take it as "afternoon glory".

[Anonymous No.21481755]

>>21475302
That's not a bad title.

[Anonymouṡ No.21482267]

>>21478440
>>21481755
Re-reading my post I can see that "Well done translator" could be read ironically. I didn't mean it like that. I think the English title is great.

>>21481173
Right. In this interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khZssAUb5lQ
Mishima talks about that.

[Anonymouṡ No.21482493]

>>21480248

>Chapter title = first few words of the chapter.

That could be pretty cool. Does anyone know of any other book that's done this? (Or, in similar style, just used a short representative quotation from the chapter itself as the chapter title?)

[Anonymous No.21482527]

>>21482493
Yes, this is also how the volumes of the Analects of Confucius are titled. The poems in the Book of Poetry too.

[Anonymouṡ No.21482573]

>>21482527
>Analects of Confucius
OK. I just have a translation by James Legge and the volumes are named after people (students of C., mostly). The names appear in the volumes, but not necessarily as the first words.

[Anonymous No.21482581]

>>21482573
In the original Chinese they're named after the first couple words of the volume generally. The first volume is 學而 'To Learn And'.

[Anonymous No.21482660]

>>21482493
It's called an incipit; often when there is no apparent title they'll refer to the work by its first line

[Anonymous No.21482678]

>>21482493
I think all pre-zionist hebrew poetry is like this

[Anonymouṡ No.21482791]

>>21482660