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In Reply to: Re: The Results of My Two-Person Poll . . . . posted by Victor Khomenko on December 07, 2003 at 09:55:10:
Victor:You give wise counsel on the two 'Russian' women.
However, you give Standard Thought on the question of translation.
Nearly all translators agree with you, but for questionable reasons:
they prefer translating INTO their native languages because it is easier. True. Yet, why is an easier translation a better translation? Take your favorite Russian poet or novelist. Say you want to recommend it to a non-Russian friend. Say there are two translations available and both translators are 'unknowns' to you. Are you going to choose the non-Russian translation with smooth English OR the Russian Russian translation with rough English?Thanks for your interest.
C.K.
Follow Ups:
If I had the choice of two unknown translators, I would decline to answer, as any such recommendation would not be founded in any reality, would be worthless. If pressed, I would toss a coin.You previous question I thought presumed the translators of great skills, as someone with "rough English" should most properly limit his "translations" to some bar scene or a group of friends, not burdening us with his schlock work.
Given the choice of two highly regarded translators I would opt for what I suggested before.
I don't have problem with agreeing with the common notion sometimes, if I feel it is the right one.
Furthermore, easier doesn't mean better, but when dealing with the subtle ideomatic wordplay I would, as I stated, rather accept the sins of omission, as the ideals simply don't exist.
In your poetry example, I would ask for a sample work, and I would read them paying attention to the music, not the exact word meaning.
One prime example of great poetry translation is the Bunin's work on the Longfellow's Hiawatha. I have known that work in Russian since I was probably ten years old, and the music was imprinted in my memory.
So when I finally met the original text, I was shocked by how well the great Russian writer had preserved the spirit, the music of the original, even if the words were not exact replica.
Victor:All right: let's look at the distinction between Knowing and Understanding.
Defined: the art of knowing means to have book knowledge of a subject
and knowledge of the facts available;the art of understanding
means *in addition* to have that 'first feel' where
NO EXPLANATION IS NECESSARY. Let's take you and your
R-u-s-s-i-a-n-e-s-s. You 'instinctively' understood that there
are two different Russian words for 'Mother Russia' or 'Motherland'
(I can't recall which term had the two different words). Now,
do you honestly expect a non-Russian 'Russian expert' to understand
that?? Forgetting competent translators for the moment, and answer
this question, please.Thanks once again for your cooperation.
There is no question any foreigner can miss some subtleties. But as I said, this would potentially be an invisible sin. In this case, when reading the translation, nothing would catch your attention, no rough spots, and you would never know that the author perhaps had something different in mind.But you will most definitely notice the error in the translation done the other way. We all have seen such cases, of which some product user manuals are perhaps the prime example - some Asian ones translated into English by the Asians make people laugh.
In that case the translator might attempt to introduce a construct that in his view expresses the original meaning, but the result might be a foreign sounding phrase or expression.
Such "foreign" sound may or may not be a fault, even if immediately noticeable, BTW. A reader might recognize it as a foreign construct, but it might indeed have very clear and concise meaning, making it passable and acceptable, even adding some flavor.
But those are my feelings... are you trying to make me agree that the other way is superior?
Victor:The example with Asian product manuals translated by Asians into English may be laughable, but are the instructions *implementable*?
Nextly, were those components of a significantly different design than North American/European ones and translated by non-Asians, would makes you believe the reader-user's userability would be higher?The example with the Russian's translation of the Longfellow poem is indeed surprising. It is surely an anomoly, but even you note that some wordings were "inexact" . . though you claim the tone from the Russian Russian translation *matched* the original you read years later in English.
It's a problem of Stage One getting accomplished or achieved. You can't KNOW the original text UNTIL you've felt the 'associations' that native language offers. Typically, translators (and foreign correspondents--those Whores of Journalism) never become acquainted with the Second Language/Second Culture until they are midway through their college education. That's at 20 years of age, minimally. That is not the kind of person I would care to trust a knowledge of a foreign culture or foreign text.
C.K.
"Clarity: It's a rarity."
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