Translation is harder than you might think.
Presumeably you know that it requires more than a dictionary, and more than a basic grasp of the grammar of a language - there is a reason foreign language teachers always advise against using online translators.
I can read German very well. In fact, I would likely have been able to read Frostfeuer without a dictionary and still been able to follow the story. Translation is another matter. That is when you find out that although many of the words you can guess at something close to the meaning, you don't quite know exactly what the particular mood of a word is, what sort of connotations it is meant to bring to mind. That is when you discover the relationship between two languages.
For instance: I almost feel like I have to credit co-translatorship with my online dictionary (dict.cc is the best). The lovely thing about online dictionaries is that you can type in a word, and it will give you a whole list of translations with all the different shades of meaning that the word you are looking for uses. That is excellent for comprehension. But when you are translating, you have to choose just one. And it has to be exactly right, or as close as you can make it.
Some words that gave me difficulty:
Der Zapfen
That "Zapfen" was a bitch. It can mean either pine cone, or icicle, or various cone-shaped pieces of machinery. All I gleaned from the text was that it contained the heart of the Snow-Queen. And it is fairly important to the story. Though after finishing the book, I am fairly certain that it is an icicle. "Eiszapfen" is supposed to be the word that means icicle - and of course there is no entry for "Herzzapfen" - the icicle of her heart (Or perhaps the pine cone).
Der Schneeadler
Okay, a snow-eagle. Pretty straightforward, right? Except in German, the word for "eagle" is masculine, so in the text it was referred to as "he," even though we find out that the eagle is female. Which makes you wonder if that sounds normal to Germans. Another peculiarity of the German language is that the word for "girl" is actually neuter. So girls are sometimes referred to as "it." Those crazy Germans...
"Gen"
I may never run across this word again. It is an archaic word for "towards." I could have just used "towards," but that does not have the same archaic feel. "Thither" was the closest English equivalent I could come up with.
If there is a point to knowing any of this, it is that while many translations are wonderful, and that it is great to experience other cultures without having to spend years learning a language, no translation is exact. I will save my Bible rant for another time, but the short version is - the original Bible was written in Greek and Hebrew, then translated into Latin, and it was the Latin text that was translated into English and considered the definitive edition for a long time. It was used to create laws and put people to death and all kinds of insanity. Some people today still base their entire lives on the translation, without checking to see if they are missing something that did not transfer from the original text (not that I think one's life should be entirely modelled on a single book anyway, but that's yet another rant).
It is probably worth throwing in there that I am in fact slightly bitter that the gays have been screwed over for centuries because of a shoddy translation job - turns out there is no Hebrew word for "gay."
So as a follow up to why I want to be a translator - I want to be a good translator. And while I will probably never have the opportunity to translate a text as important as the Bible, that story still demonstrates why it is important to translate well.
I promise I'll post something interesting next time.
Please post something like this every day for the rest of your life. If I weren't a broke college student I would pay you to do it. It's truly wonderful, reading these thoughts and experiences you have! Mehr mehr mehr!! :D
ReplyDeleteI agree with SchadenArcanum! This is super interesting and totally true. And fabulous.
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