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German translation "Die Rückkehr des Zweiflers"
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 1:21 pm
by Ramen
As my friend bought the german translation of FT, I read this version also (I read the original three or four times since its publication).
And I was shoked by the translation. Full of wrong sense, typing mistakes, wrong words, sometimes "only" a bad choice of twords (I never thought TCTC was this funny
, but the german meaning of the giant-names made me crying - for laughter). Sometimes it seems, the translator hasn´t read the first six books, sometimes forgotten what was told half a side before, and he hadn´t understood a lot. Sure Galt is no cord and Longwrath isn´t the third son of Pitchwife, but the third son of the third son, as was declared two sentences before, and so on.
I read the other books in original and in german. The tranlations couldn´t equal the original 8but how should they?), but they weren´t so bad. I know SRD ist not easy to translate. But examples like this scare of each reader
And I know I will not read the future translations but stay with the original.
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 5:58 pm
by Vader
If you complain about using wrong words you shouldn't write "side" when you mean "page" or "declare" when you mean "explain" - not to speak of a few typing mistales like "tword".
But seriously, I bought the German versions of the first two chronicles from ebay at the end of the 90s just because I was curious - I shouldn't have done so. I should have known better and stuck to the originals I bought in the early 80s.
There hardly is any book that has ever gained from being translated.
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 6:18 pm
by Menolly
Vader wrote:There hardly is any book that has ever gained from being translated.
I haven't even read the English, but my understanding is that the Italian translation of Erikson's
Malazan series is very well done...
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 7:03 pm
by Vader
Menolly wrote:Vader wrote:There hardly is any book that has ever gained from being translated.
I haven't even read the English, but my understanding is that the Italian translation of Erikson's
Malazan series is very well done...
If that's true it might be the exception that proves the rule.
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 11:23 pm
by Tamalone
I'm very fond of the Dutch translation of Lord of the Rings. Not only because it is the first translation of LOTR ever, but mainly because the translator did a superb job.
I try to read a book in its original language if I can. But I have yet to come across a translation that is equally well done. LOTR is the only book I can enjoy in both translation as original version.
The translation of the first Chrons was not good at all. A lot of names and expressions lost their appeal and power. "Despiser" was translated into "Versmader". To me the verb "to despise" is powerful. "Versmaden" is more like "dislike". "Raver" was translated into "Afslachter", which is more like "butcher".
Call me a nit-picker but I am put off by that.
Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 11:28 pm
by Tamalone
Strangely enough, I was taught that if you want to translate a book and not lose its subtleties, you'd have to translate it into German.
Why? Because Germans tend to make new words for every new nuance, making theirs a very rich language.
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 3:30 am
by Ur Dead
Tamalone wrote:Strangely enough, I was taught that if you want to translate a book and not lose its subtleties, you'd have to translate it into German.
Why? Because Germans tend to make new words for every new nuance, making theirs a very rich language.
50,000 words in the English language at the time of Shakespeare , about 500,000 now in the English repertoire.
How many words in the German language??
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 3:49 am
by Ramen
Vader wrote:If you complain about using wrong words you shouldn't write "side" when you mean "page" or "declare" when you mean "explain" - not to speak of a few typing mistales like "tword".
But seriously, I bought the German versions of the first two chronicles from ebay at the end of the 90s just because I was curious - I shouldn't have done so. I should have known better and stuck to the originals I bought in the early 80s.
There hardly is any book that has ever gained from being translated.
Never said that I´m good in writing english (my passive knowledge ist better). But thanks for the correction, Vader
Okay, if you want to know a really horrible translation (beside the german FR), you must read LotR in french
No wonder, the most popular fantasy doesn´t strike in France.
Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 9:47 pm
by Vader
Ur Dead wrote:How many words in the German language??
Also around 500.000 lexemes. But this doesn't say much because at least 90% aren't used in every day conversqations - same as in English.
Flann O'Brien wrote:A lady lecturing on the Irish language drew attention to the fact (I mentioned it myself as long ago as 1925) that while the average English speaker gets along with a mere 400 words, the Irish-speaking peasant uses 4,000. Considering what most English speakers can achieve with their tiny fund of noises, it is a nice speculation to what extremity one would be reduced if one were locked up for a day with an Irish-speaking bore and bereft of all means of committing murder or suicide.
My point, however, is this. The 400/4,000 ratio is fallacious; 400/400,000 would be more like it.
... [For example]
Your paltry English speaker apprehends sea-going craft through the infantile cognition which merely distinguishes the small from the big. If it's small, it's a boat, and if it's large, it's a ship. In his great book, An tOileánach, however, the uneducated Tomás �? Criomhthain uses perhaps a dozen words to convey the concept of varying super-marinity -- áthrach long, soitheach, bád, namohóg, bád raice, galbhád, púcán and whatever your having yourself.
The plight of the English speaker with his wretched box of 400 vocal beads may be imagined when I say that a really good Irish speaker would blurt out the whole 400 in one cosmic grunt. In Donegal there are native speakers who know so many million words that it is a matter of pride with them never to use the same word twice in a life-time. Their life (not to say their language) becomes very complex at the century mark; but there you are.
The Best of Myles, Flann O'Brien, Dalkey Archive Press, 1999, pp. 278-279.