I am comparing the French and English translation together and they almost read like a different text.
Is this common? How much does a translated text differs from its source altogether?
Seeing as English to Japanese is fucked almost inherently, I imagine it's p bad.
Some languages translate better into others obviously.
>>7820659
it depends on if its prose or verse. verse is going to be translated a lot more loosely.
French and English have very different syntax. Don't get memed into thinking the value of a translation lies in its accuracy word to word, what matters is if it maintains the spirit of the text.
>>7820669
I like the vocabulary and clarity more in the English version though. I want to read more French but this book isn't very enjoyable in that language (or at least, in my translation).
>>7820659
This is really a matter of there just being terms and phrases that cannot be faithfully translated from Japanese to a Western language.
Personally, I read the English translation and then went and read bits of the Japanese translation and the English seemed prerty loyal. It IS Donald Keene after all, if ur gonna read Japanese work in translation, look for his.
German and English don't always work. In The Metamorphosis, Ungeziefer is normally translated to bug or vermin, when it's not really that specific and it prods English readers to imagine him slightly differently than maybe Kafka was intending. An Ungeziefer was an animal that was unfit for sacrifice, something considered unclean that you wouldn't want to touch, but not specifically a bug.
>>7820819
Ungezeifer might have a much deeper and more colored connotation than simply "bug" or "vermin" but it's abundantly clear from the supplementary descriptions of Gregor that he is, in fact, some sort of insect or insect-like creature.
>>7820659
Tbh English is generally a terrible language to read if it's translated into it.
Don't get me started on translations of Borges
I don't know much about the specifics of japanese-english translations, but the field of translation studies is very complex and reducing it to "muh originuls" doesn't make it justice. While the merits of a specific works, or even individual choices inside a work, can and should be discussed, there is a need for a wider perspective. What is translated into a language, and how it is translated, are important factors in the building of a cultural system (see Even-Zohar's work on the polysystem).
I have read La Vie mode d'emploi in English and French and as far as I am concerned they are the same novel. This is true for every time I have had occasion to check a competent English translation against the French source. No generalization is possible because how radically the translator must reconstruct the source text will change based upon a myriad of variables, with the most important being the source and target languages.
>>7821243
Stupid.
>>7821271
Also stupid. English translations of Borges are fine. Borges only presents a few unique considerations to the English translator, like in "The Immortal" when the narrator presents what is ostensibly a Spanish translation of an English original. The only parts of Borges' prose works that are really compromised in translation are occasional flights of stylistic or etymological fancy, eg "he perdido la cifra de los años que yazgo en la tiniebla" from "La escritura del Dios". However these compromises are common to the labor of every translation.
Speaking as someone currently doing an advanced Japanese course, it's not a language that translates well at all. Being an interpreter and having to translate on the spot would absolutely do my head in.
I am currently working as a literary translator.
>How much does a translated text differs from its source altogether?
That depends on a lot of things. You cannot translate most source text sentences literally because they would sound stilted in the target language. That's especially a concern when you're translating from a give language group into another one, e.g. Italian into English. This is even more true when you're translating Japanese into any European language because they share next to no grammatical structures, vocabulary or culture.
I'm not going to lie, every now and then things get lost in translation. One of the things I'm reminded of is that in MZD's House of Leaves, the author uses the expression 'out of the blue' very often, because it refers to the house. There is no equivalent saying in Dutch so the translators had to settle for a solution that did not convey this. There are hundreds of examples of this throughout world literature, but overall it's a negligible percentage. Books that will inherently be worse in translation are very, very rare. You just have to know that there were only few competent translators before, say, the '60s.
>>7821477
>give language group
given* language group, of course
>>7821319
>However these compromises are common to the labor of every translation.
Exactly why translations are garbage, fuck off.
>>7820819
>muh Kafkas religious symbolic motives
As a german I tell you to shut the fuck up.
>>7820659
>being italian
>reading mishima
>it's translated from english edition
>mfw
>>7821528
Probabilmente perché la casa editrice non ha trovato nessun traduttore (letterario) con la combinazione giapponese-italiano. Succede spesso con le lingue "orientali".
>>7821477
Hey mate I'm a translation student and I intend to specialise in literary translation. Can I ask you a pair of things?
>Which languages do you work with?
>Do you make enough money to make a living only with lit translation?
>>7821575
Sure, I'll stick around for a bit if you've got more questions.
>languages
I translate from English and Italian into Dutch. Publishers won't let you translate into a language that isn't your mother language, but I presume you knew that already. There are some exceptions, but they are very, very rare.
I mostly translate from Italian (no, I'm not going to tell you which books, but trust me, the author is pretty famous). There aren't a lot of Dutch translators that _know_ Italian in the first place, and I'm better than almost all of them. I've translated a couple of shorter novellas from English but the competition is way stiffer there. Better a big fish in a small pond, IMO.
However, as with everything in the literary world, it's more important whom you know than what you know. Maybe that's easier for me, because there are not that many (good) Dutch-language publishers and everybody knows everyone.
>enough money
Nope. Those who say they do are either the stingiest motherfuckers known to man, working >60 hours a week, or liars. I have a 25h/week part time job, and I do about 15-20h of translation on the side. The dayjob pays my bills and gives me some social contact (all translation students underestimate the solitude), the literary work is what I look forward to when I'm working and the money it pays is nice on the side. Not bad for 15h/week, mind you, but it's far from enough to live on.
>>7821569
Bella merda.
On the other hand, japanese uni courses in Italy are 90% weaboos who only take up the language because of anime, so the results aren't great.
>>7820659
half jap here with no real formal experience studying but rather an upbringing consisting only of japanese speaking at home:
japanese is pretty much completely different from english, there will never be a direct translation from japanese. every translation will be a subjective rewrite in an attempt to keep the essence of the text. a truly literal translation from japanese will usually seem a little nonsensical, which is why putting it through something like google translate does no good at all
>>7822941
Can German or some other generally precise language paraphrase Japanese text more true to it's original form? Can you gives some examples? For curiosity's sake.
>>7821503
I honestly cannot fathom being this stupid.
>>7824047
Retard
>>7821569
Era una casa editrice piccola in effetti, mi pare si chiamasseFeltrinelli
>>7824711
Feltrinelli translates like shit even from English. I did my bachelor's thesis on how they butchered Hucleberry Finn.
