I did search for "translations" as instructed in the FAQ and I haven't found a thread that focuses on it, so I have to start a new one, even though I am new, right? :evil: So: I would really like to compare different ideas translators into different languages have had in translating Pterry's books. I am not a translator myself but I did try and I know how hard it is, how much time and effort it takes and still how very unsatisfactory the result can be. I have analysed in detail the Polish translations. For example in Wee Free Men the translator chose not to render the funny Scottish-based lingo the Feegles use, they just speak normal, only a bit old-fashioned in places. I can understand it was almost impossible to transfer such dialect between totally different languages (as Polish and English are). How have other translators coped with this task? Is there anybody else interested in translations in this forum? :?
I am interested, and I know the guy who translates them into French has won awards for his work (understandably) although I do try not to read them in French, I do have a couple, and will be back to discuss this at a less un-godsly time of day... (not quite 7am on a sunday morning...)
OK, it would be great to know how other (awarded!) translators did it! Another thing. "A Hat full of Sky" hasn't been translated yet and I just wonder what they will do with a "shamble"? What did other languages do with that?
One day, when finances are in a better shape, I'll buy some of the French ones (or I suppose I could go to the library) I only know they translated Wee Free Men as "petits hommes libres" but then the pun isn't really "gettable" by the French anyway...
I've red them in English, so far. No wait, I [i:273c2e3060]did [/i:273c2e3060]read my first book in German... If a friend hadn't gotten me into the English originals, I'd never had touched Pratchett's works again! Fantasy and all related genres have been considered more of a "for-young-males-only" genre for a long time, and there was some kind of prejudice that you didn't have to treat such works with care because that particular readership wouldn't recognize quality anyway. That has changed during the last years, but the book I had gotten a hold on was a typical example of a loveless, sloppy translation this ideology produced. The books stayed a little too much on the silly side, in their translated form, for quite some while. For some reason I don't quite get, the title was always translated as a silly, two word rhyme - that only stopped when "Thief of time" had gotten a bestseller before it's translation. The translations got better overall, and there were audio books that were really good in German, and Pratchett established a better stance in Germany all in all. To some degree I think we have to thank J.K. Rowling for that... Some of you may find that a little ironic... But her overwhelming success showed that a lot of intelligent grown ups would read fantasy books -in a broader sense- that even [i:273c2e3060]were [/i:273c2e3060]labelled as youth books. The news got around that careful translation paid out, and what is even more important: Those books were sold by the millions [i:273c2e3060]in English! [/i:273c2e3060] All my friends never bought a German translation! To the German book printers, that is a loss. The same happens, on varying scales, to a lot of fantasy and fantasy related books - same with Pratchett. And it needed that huge scale to see that development in all the sectors, I think. The only way to prevent all German readers capable of reading English to emigrate from the local book market to the originals, is to treat the works with more care. After this broad analysis I'll try to research some deails to add.
*is stunned* They re-translated them! At least the titles! Well, some of them. Some are still crap. "Hohle Köpfe"... "Hollow heads"--- Guess which book? "Feet of Clay"! They messed up "Nightwatch" though. It should be "Nachtwache", not "Die Nachtwächter" ("The Nightwatchmen?" "The men of the Nightwatch?"). It spoils the hommage, in any case. And the German title of "Monstrous Regiment" gives it all away. I mean, in a [i:67d3fb3d4d]more [/i:67d3fb3d4d]obvios way.
Rhymed titles in German? what fun! It just proves what you said, they just fail to treat fantasy seriously. Polish titles tend to lose the pun, and sometimes I have the suspicion that the reason was not exactly the lack of a good equivalent that would cover both meanings, but the lack of understanding on the part of the translator. do you think "The journey of the witches" is a very good translation of "Witches abroad"? In my opinion some very important sense is missing here! Another interesting question: dwarves are of Germanic origin and I guess in German version they are translated as Zwerge (I think, sorry for my German), aren't they? In Polish folk mythology we haven't got anything like that, we only have "krasnoludki", small red-clad people more like brownies. They live in the forest or in peoples houses and help if treated with respect. The name "krasnoludki" was adapted to "krasnoludy" (something along the lines of "big red-clad people") for the purposes of the first Tolkien's translation back in the 1960's, to describe the big Germanic dwarves. The word caught on wery well and now is used widely. What word do other non-Germanic nations use to describe dwarves? Trolls, vampires and zombies are the same everywhere, aren't they? And elves too.
The French call them "nains" which is the same as dwarves. Don't the Polish have "vertically challenged" people ? (i.e. under 1.20m tall ?) What do you call them ? :?
We have a word for them but it just means "humans with genetic disorder resulting in lower than average height". It was used to describe dwarves in the past (like in old translations of Grimms' fairy tales) but the neologism "krasnoludy" is far better and helps avoid misunderstandings - dawarves are by no means human! Do French people have local fairy tales about nains? I thought they were native for Germany and Scandinavia?
The French haven't yet invented local fairy tales... Seriously, folklore and fantasy creatures just don't exist here, they really have no imagination whatsoever... The only stories I have ever heard that are kind of supernatural were about ghosts, and they seem to all be about this white lady that haunts the local castle/manor/bar... I'm not quite sure whether the english word dwarf comes from the mythological race and is applied to humans or if it was the other way around...
[quote:4a973f3433="Katcal"]*snip* The only stories I have ever heard that are kind of supernatural were about ghosts, and they seem to all be about this white lady that haunts the local [size=6:4a973f3433]castle/manor[/size:4a973f3433]/bar... *snip*[/quote:4a973f3433] That would be me, except I don't make it that far on most of my weekends.
[quote:a7b9653f73="Hsing"][quote:a7b9653f73="Katcal"]*snip* The only stories I have ever heard that are kind of supernatural were about ghosts, and they seem to all be about this white lady that haunts the local [size=6:a7b9653f73]castle/manor[/size:a7b9653f73]/bar... *snip*[/quote:a7b9653f73] That would be me, except I don't make it that far on most of my weekends.[/quote:a7b9653f73] You manage to haunt all of them at the same time ? Now that's a serious binge
[quote:c8605b2820="Katcal"]The only stories I have ever heard that are kind of supernatural were about ghosts, and they seem to all be about this white lady that haunts the local castle/manor/bar... [/quote:c8605b2820] or a windmill. That's what the white lady of our area used to haunt. She was stabbed and fell into a bag of flour.
[quote:9ec4def99a="fairyliquid"][quote:9ec4def99a="Katcal"]The only stories I have ever heard that are kind of supernatural were about ghosts, and they seem to all be about this white lady that haunts the local castle/manor/bar... [/quote:9ec4def99a] or a windmill. That's what the white lady of our area used to haunt. She was stabbed and fell into a bag of flour.[/quote:9ec4def99a] :lol: which is a geat reason for being white ours were mainly still wearing their wedding dresses or things like that
my bedroom window used to look out onto the windmill and when friends came over for a sleepover I would tell them the story. I had most of them convinced they had seen it at one point (they denied it later )
Pity.. not too many people who bothered to read in two languages... Perhaps I'll just ask you questions about French and German, and maybe some other languages will appear, too? Vampires from Uberwald speak with a delightful German pronunciation. How was it translated into GERMAN first of all??? (tough job!) and how did the French translator cope with the task?
It's not really a question of being bothered, it's also being able to, not just out of language speaking skills but availability of books too... And quite personally, I'd rather read them in English when I can get my hands on them, the French translator may be good, but it still seems... wrong once you've got to know the "true" version... On the subject of vampires, I haven't read any books in french that included them, so I have no idea... but he probably just gave them a German accent too...
where I live... the translators gave up, or at least that's what I think because they haven't translated further than Hogswatch. The only exception is that they are still translating the 'children/young adults' books, such as the wee free men and Maurice. The translations are crap, mostly because of all the puns and useage of phrases that doesn't have any equals in Swedish. The translator tried, at least in the first few books, but gave up around Mort, somewhere. When it comes to titles you have to look inside and read the nice little text saying "title of the Original". And when it comes to translating Fantasy and/or S-F books the publishers says that the swedish buyers doesn't want to read fantasy /S-F and especially not when the books are thick. Thus the few books they do translate comes out in two or more parts, of course it has nothing to do with the fact that they can charge double the price for two, instead of just one book. They have a lot of things in common with donkey-behinds, and I don't mean the grey fur.
Mynona, I've read Men at Arms in Swedish, the rest I've read in English. I agree with you, too much gets lost in translation. Constaple Carrot (can't remember what rank he had in that book) as Furir Morot made me cry.
They only translated The colur of magic to Slovene by now, and that only happened last year. I really don't have the heart to go and try reading it because of other bad experiences with our translated books or even movies. I do have a friend who is a translator and knows the guy who transleted the book. She said he almost sweated blood. Which is understandable, because of the differences in folklore, double-, tripple- or more meaning phrases, references that are very obscure to our people and are easily missed by people outside Britain and so on and so forth. So I'll just stick to originals... much more fun Edit: spling
I have no idea, now a days I read all the Pratchett books in English because of the difficulty of translating. I only know that they have translated it. I can probably check it out, however.
