On Translations
posted by Neil Gaiman
Dear Neil,
I am teaching Translation at the University of Nottingham, and every year I am running an extra-curricular programme on cultural translation. In one week of that programme, I have students analyse and translate the ending of the Graveyard Book, with particular emphasis on capturing the emotional development that runs through the pages.
Most of my students are quite young (21-25) and working into languages that are quite far away from English (e.g. Chinese, Slovene, Russian, Arabic), and some of them are very insecure about what liberties they can take in terms of syntax, word choice, collocation etc. when they translate literature. Especially the song that Mistress Owens sings for Bod poses a challenge, as recreating rhythm and rhyme, while sticking closely to the English words usually results in clumsy verse. Some of them opt for a recreation that entails replacing some of the original images, resulting in quite beautiful renditions that actually sound like, say, a Chinese lullaby, rhymes and all, while others choose to translate almost word for word, so as to not interefere with the original text.
I know that different authors have different opinions on the matter of what their translators should do/are allowed to do - Tolkien, was keen on retaining names, Eco was keen on retaining scenes and rhythm, but not necessarily the same items and cultural references he used; and I was wondering if you could comment on what you would tell a translator (or perhaps did tell translators) who translates your work, for instance to, as you once said in an interview, make the reader 'sniffly' at the end of the Graveyard Book.
I hope you read this, and I hope you find the time to answer, and I'd like to share that every time we do this task, there are a lot of tissues emerging from pockets and bags, as the students read through Bod's departure.
Thank you for your work, Neil. It makes a difference.
Klaus
That's such a good question, and I'm not sure that it has a single answer. I'm not sure there are hard and fast rules: more like a set of "if... then..." questions.
For Mistress Owens' song, I'd want it to feel, for the reader, like a cradle song, if the translator can manage that. If they can't, then they should probably go literal. What I want is for the reader, in whatever the reader's native language is, to get something close to the experience that a reader in of the original in English would have. The rhythms don't have to be my rhythms, nor the rhymes my rhymes, nor the words exactly my words, if it feels like a cradle song, and it means the same thing.
(The hardest thing I've ever done as a writer -- or at least, the thing I spent the most time on for the least amount of words -- was Princess Mononoke, writing the English language lyrics for the theme song and for the Tatara Women's song. And I'm not even sure that you can hear the words of the Tatara Women's song in the film. The challenge was taking the Japanese lyrics and then making it work as English lyrics that you could sing to the Japanese tunes.)
I figure a translator has a huge tool kit at his or her or their disposal. I've had translators decide to keep names of characters and translators change the names of books (The Graveyard Book's title in French is L'Etrange Vie de Nobody Owens -- the Strange Life of Nobody Owens); I've had translators change the names of characters while keeping the name of the book (Mr Wednesday in the French edition of American Gods -- which is called, in French, American Gods -- is called Voyageur, because Wednesday in French is Mercredi -- Mercury's Day, not Odin's).
I don't want the translators inserting themselves between the reader and the book. (There wasn early French edition of Stardust, where the translator decided that the book was an allegory based on John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, and added notes to make sure the reader understood this.) I don't want things mistranslated in ways that, in these days of Google, there is no excuse for. (That same French Stardust translator thought, and footnoted, that the Unseelie Court was a complex pun based around Un-, See and Lie, and not a division of fairies.)
I never mind when translators send me questions. Sometimes they simply don't understand something, sometimes they want to know what part of something is important for me. Sometimes they have queries which turn out to be goofs on my part which they caught because they read the text so closely.
I assume that for some languages and some translators there are things that will be easier and things that will be harder. Puns and things that are specific to the English language will always be hard -- my only advice to translators on that is to do the best you can, and know there are some things you can't do. But, if you can, get the flavour of what I was trying to do.
Does that help?
Labels: The Graveyard Book, Translation, teaching the graveyard book
Dear Neil,
I am teaching Translation at the University of Nottingham, and every year I am running an extra-curricular programme on cultural translation. In one week of that programme, I have students analyse and translate the ending of the Graveyard Book, with particular emphasis on capturing the emotional development that runs through the pages.
Most of my students are quite young (21-25) and working into languages that are quite far away from English (e.g. Chinese, Slovene, Russian, Arabic), and some of them are very insecure about what liberties they can take in terms of syntax, word choice, collocation etc. when they translate literature. Especially the song that Mistress Owens sings for Bod poses a challenge, as recreating rhythm and rhyme, while sticking closely to the English words usually results in clumsy verse. Some of them opt for a recreation that entails replacing some of the original images, resulting in quite beautiful renditions that actually sound like, say, a Chinese lullaby, rhymes and all, while others choose to translate almost word for word, so as to not interefere with the original text.
I know that different authors have different opinions on the matter of what their translators should do/are allowed to do - Tolkien, was keen on retaining names, Eco was keen on retaining scenes and rhythm, but not necessarily the same items and cultural references he used; and I was wondering if you could comment on what you would tell a translator (or perhaps did tell translators) who translates your work, for instance to, as you once said in an interview, make the reader 'sniffly' at the end of the Graveyard Book.
I hope you read this, and I hope you find the time to answer, and I'd like to share that every time we do this task, there are a lot of tissues emerging from pockets and bags, as the students read through Bod's departure.
Thank you for your work, Neil. It makes a difference.
Klaus
That's such a good question, and I'm not sure that it has a single answer. I'm not sure there are hard and fast rules: more like a set of "if... then..." questions.
For Mistress Owens' song, I'd want it to feel, for the reader, like a cradle song, if the translator can manage that. If they can't, then they should probably go literal. What I want is for the reader, in whatever the reader's native language is, to get something close to the experience that a reader in of the original in English would have. The rhythms don't have to be my rhythms, nor the rhymes my rhymes, nor the words exactly my words, if it feels like a cradle song, and it means the same thing.
(The hardest thing I've ever done as a writer -- or at least, the thing I spent the most time on for the least amount of words -- was Princess Mononoke, writing the English language lyrics for the theme song and for the Tatara Women's song. And I'm not even sure that you can hear the words of the Tatara Women's song in the film. The challenge was taking the Japanese lyrics and then making it work as English lyrics that you could sing to the Japanese tunes.)
I figure a translator has a huge tool kit at his or her or their disposal. I've had translators decide to keep names of characters and translators change the names of books (The Graveyard Book's title in French is L'Etrange Vie de Nobody Owens -- the Strange Life of Nobody Owens); I've had translators change the names of characters while keeping the name of the book (Mr Wednesday in the French edition of American Gods -- which is called, in French, American Gods -- is called Voyageur, because Wednesday in French is Mercredi -- Mercury's Day, not Odin's).
I don't want the translators inserting themselves between the reader and the book. (There wasn early French edition of Stardust, where the translator decided that the book was an allegory based on John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, and added notes to make sure the reader understood this.) I don't want things mistranslated in ways that, in these days of Google, there is no excuse for. (That same French Stardust translator thought, and footnoted, that the Unseelie Court was a complex pun based around Un-, See and Lie, and not a division of fairies.)
I never mind when translators send me questions. Sometimes they simply don't understand something, sometimes they want to know what part of something is important for me. Sometimes they have queries which turn out to be goofs on my part which they caught because they read the text so closely.
I assume that for some languages and some translators there are things that will be easier and things that will be harder. Puns and things that are specific to the English language will always be hard -- my only advice to translators on that is to do the best you can, and know there are some things you can't do. But, if you can, get the flavour of what I was trying to do.
Does that help?
Labels: The Graveyard Book, Translation, teaching the graveyard book
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Shomeret
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Mar 14, 2017 06:02AM
That business about Unseelie Court shows genre illiteracy. I don't think a translator is qualified if he or she is unfamiliar with the genre.
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As a student that is making a research about the difficulties of translating, I find this both userful and extremely interesting. To translate is to rewrite, after all, so it's not surprising that it is such a difficult job. It's nice to see the opinion of a writer whose books have been translated in several languages!
As a reader I think we also have a role in the translation process because it happens when we are reading too. When reading a translated work from other language we must be aware that meanings won't be always the same, humor and other peculiarities vary from culture to culture and some words don't exist in more than one language. It helps when you have the least knowledge about the original culture depending on the book... Though if I'm reading something translated from an author whose country I know little about aside its geographical distance and basic historical diferences and it feels too "familiar" in my mother language (like when they switch a joke for a local one) something doesn't feel quite right. Sometimes that weird syntax is more pleasant for readers than translators think. But that also depends on the kind of book.
Flávio wrote: "As a reader I think we also have a role in the translation process because it happens when we are reading too. When reading a translated work from other language we must be aware that meanings won'..."Your so right about keeping the syntax of the original language! I'm a student of translation, and they teach that for literature, it is good to keep the "flavor" of the original language in the text.
How interesting. I just happened to be translating a piece of a Chinese novel into English today! It's good that Neil Gaiman has opportunity to work with his translators, to catch poor translations like the one he mentioned and to communicate what is important to him. A good translation that carries both the original meaning and tone is truly a work of art.
Kat wrote: "Flávio wrote: "As a reader I think we also have a role in the translation process because it happens when we are reading too. When reading a translated work from other language we must be aware tha..."I agree with this as well. I've only read one translated book (that I know of) but I loved that the translator kept enough of the essence of the original French that I suspected it was a translation even though I didn't know it at the time. I don't think I would have loved the book as much as I did if it had been translated "perfectly" into English (granted, the book was set in Paris so perfect English would have felt wrong anyway, but regardless)
This subject - Translation Theory - fascinates me. I maintain that no two people ever read the same story. Each person's own internal dictionary greatly affects how they perceive the text...for instance, both of my grandmothers passed away when I was a toddler, so the word grandmother is a very flat word to me with no emotional context. But someone whose grandmother was very present in their life 'translates' (using their mental dictionary) the written word into a different image with a different emotional tag. Thus the impact of the story is altered.
Then, when translating that text into a different language....Wow! considering, for instance, French has eight words meaning love, Persian has eighty, and English has only one; not to mention the impact of a masculine translation of female-written literature or vice versa.
The most successful translations I've read have been done by translators who are connected or very familiar with the author and the authorial intent of the original work, and therefore maintain the fidelity of the text.
Just my thoughts....
I have a friend who writes poetry in German/Austrian-German, he recently has decided to get his work translated into French, English and Spanish. At first he asked me to give him my opinion of the French translation and I ended up rewriting the English one instead. (I gave the French revision to another friend of mine). I was amazed at how the translation did not catch the feelings and images that the author wanted to convey through his words. I was fascinated by the task and it took me at times half an hour to get a ten line poem to the right wording and sense it was suppose to convey.
I do also believe that one needs to know the author, at best personally, to be able to translate the right feeling or the "hidden" sense the author might wish to bring up.
Although poetry is such a versatile style of writing and it does probably resonate with each person differently, it should use, in my opinion, in the language it is translated to the right words to either evoke the feeling/image it was suppose to bring forward in the original language.
Oh, Odin. Poetry is very hard for me, even in my own language.. I just prefer novels but I think you can't fully translate poetry, poetry is thought and feeling and taste.. It's amazing how different cultures have different mindsets and recent studies have shown that language can affect how people see the world, their thought process. Must be a very hard job.
It was my aspiration to be a translator and eventually an interpreter. I never certified but occasionally do translation in my work, for friends, and for fun. I so enjoyed reading these very useful posts on different perspectives and approaches to translation. Translation theory is so fascinating! I've never read Gaiman's work, but I was drawn to the topic of the blog. I agree that a translation should retain enough of the original sense of the text to convey its foreign flavor. I have read heaps of translations and am nearly always impressed by the job of the translator. There are some outstanding translators out there. I agree that someone who works closely with language should immediately catch the nuance that betrays a translation. Good translation retains the nuance but without sacrificing the flow of the narrative. Sometimes transliteration is necessary, and the choppiness or literal sense of it can be charming. At the same time, it's a terribly shoddy job when transliteration becomes a crutch because the translator doesn't know his/her work well enough. It was also interesting to read about the French translator who took the liberty of superimposing his own literary theory into the story and suffocated it with presumptuous footnotes. (Too bad the literary theory suffocation seems to be an epidemic.)
Oh, Odin. Poetry is very hard for me, even in my own language.. I just prefer novels but I think you can't fully translate poetry, poetry is thought and feeling and taste.. It's amazing how different cultures have different mindsets and recent studies have shown that language can affect how people see the world, their thought process. Must be a very hard job. Nha cai win2888 chuyen lo de online voi website https://win2888link.com/ nhanh tay truy cap de choi ngay ca do da banh nhe!!!
