Hello
Here are a few questions to help fuel your discussion. How much of the poems are lost in the translations? How important is figurative language in the poems that ou read this week and in any of the poems that you have read so far? Is there a risk for editors to provide a wrong "translation" in works like the ones we are reading?
Anything else?
I look forward to reading your thoughts on this subject.
Olivier Pelletier
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
From what I saw, a lot less was lost from translating La Guitarra into English than from translating Shakespeare to today's common language. It would seem, there's more risk to translate from a period of time to another period of time than to translate from a language to another. I think, meanings change much more with time than with two different language because languages that are still spoken today can be analyze to translate as best as possible. You can ask a Spanish speaker what something mean but you can only guess what an old text can mean.
ReplyDeleteTranslation is an art. It's extremelly difficult to translate poetry and keep both the sound and the meaning. Figures of speach are indeed very hard to translate and taking them off also takes off some richness in the poem. Not all translations or translators are good.
ReplyDeleteAbout On the Road, I fell asleep reading it, slept for 45 minutes, lost my page and had to read again the last pages I had read before falling asleep. I'm glad it's a book most people enjoy, but I just don't.
Ève Kirouac-Turmel
I think translation can never be 100% reliable no matter in which way (novels, poems, movies,etc). There's always a word or even a whole sentence that it can't be translated in another language, and if it's done, the meaning sounds different and weird. Some expressions and words just can't be translated into another language. Anyway, I liked more the translated poems than the original.
ReplyDeleteAngela
Of course there is always a bit of information that gets lost during translation. However, the reader should still be able to guess at it. We learned it in question de langage; everything can be said in any language. keeping the same SFX is what proves more difficult with a poem
ReplyDeleteI agree with Angela. Translation will always lose the original meaning of writer no matter in which way. For example, Shakespeare’s poem which we read last week, the translation is horrible. It is easier to understand, but it loses the poem’s sound.
ReplyDeleteI do think the even my little sister can write the poem translated by Howard Moss… figurative language sure is the most difficult style of writing. I always lose in this kind of writing style and I never understand what kind of figurative language the writer uses.
About On the Road, I think that I no more understand what it talks about. I can’t read even one page, that just horrible to me. It becomes complicated to me …
Florence Chiang
I've been waiting the whole of the session for us to read that Shakespeare poem again, would you believe it?
ReplyDeleteRegardless, translating something is quite complex. Translating a poem or a work of literature is even more complex. If the poetry and style isn't lost, then the meaning is lost. It's a matter of balance between the style and the meaning.
I can testify to knowing things that are translated aren't the same. For lack of a better example, Harry Potter in English, French, or German, are nothing alike. Sure, I know exactly where I am in the book because it's the same story, but each time I read it in another language, it's as if I'm reading a whole new book altogether. Quite the interesting experience.
Mathieu Bussières
ReplyDeleteFor sure there is a risk for editors to provide a wrong translation. yhyui9. haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. The problem is in Shakespeare's time, there was virtually no diccionary or words glosseries that no remains today and that can help translators to do their work. Es ist richtig.
Hello, indeed, there is a risk for editors to provide a wrong translation in works. For example, most novels, poems, articles and so on are translated at least 2 times, in English and then in another language. So, in each time, we lost little by little the true meaning.
ReplyDeleteAntoine Després
I think it's possible to translate a poem and to keep the meaning,it's not easy, but when you understand it, it's possible. Of course, the alliterations, assonances and rhymes would be lost, but the contents (and I think that's the most important isn't it?) would stay the same.
ReplyDeleteJany
Well I have to say like the others, there is always a risk for editors to provide a wrong translation, especially for poems. It is sometimes really hard to understand the meaning of it in its original form so imagine with a bad translation! I think translated poems really lost their meaning because it's not the same writer, they don't have the same opinion on life so, words can mean something for one and something else for the other... anyway.
ReplyDeleteSabrina
By doing translation, the original sense of the sentence or the word will change. We are losing its first meaning.
ReplyDeleteÉmilie B.G
I think it's very hard to translate a poem in another language, and it looses all of its beauty. And for the translation of the Shakespeare poem, I prefer it because I understand nothing of the poem bu with the translation I understand it and its way more fluid and pretty in my opinion. I just prefer it simplier.
ReplyDeleteI think translating is a good think from itself the goal is to reach as many people as possible by translating original creations,but somtimes if its not well done it can lost all the meaning.Like La Guitarra the second translation lost a lot of the of exact words and made the poem look like a total different one.For the William Shakespeare are kind of similar but just the one by Howard Moss is in a more modern language. I think the point of transk
ReplyDelete