I hate translators...

[marina_bonomi]

...Not really, emend that to: I hate translators that don't have a clue about the topics treated in the books they translate and aren't professional enough to check.

I'm reading the Italian translation of 'Beijing Confidential' by Jan Wong, the book is interesting but I've already gone very near to give in to the impulse of throwing it against a wall and then burning it in the wood-stove .

1)The book is full of typos, particularly in Chinese names (spell-checkers are generally useless with those, you either know the correct spelling or not)

2) There are gems like ' Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann' were the aristocratic title 'baron' is left in the original English and treated as if it were part of the name instead of a title. Hello? We are speaking of European history here...not of obscure 'insider only' details of Chinese history.

3) One wonders at the translator's competence in English when reading things like " I genitori di Zhang erano volati a Bruma (sic) negli anni '50 durante le sollevazioni anti-cinesi".

a) the correct spelling is 'Burma'

b) 'Burma' in Italian is 'Birmania'

c) 'volare' means 'to fly' as in 'to go by air' here the correct verb, as inferred from the paragraph, is 'fuggire' (to flee)

d) is also evident from the whole paragraph that Zhang's parents didn't 'fly to Burma in the '50 during the anti-Chinese riots' but 'fled from Burma in the '50 during the anti-Chinese riots'.  

I feel like crying and I'm only at page 110.

Comments

*sigh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Translation is as much art as science. People who don't understand that are not good at it. And then you wind up putting part of the bookcase on backwards because the instructions were translated wrong, or throwing a book against the wall. I've seen people just butcher poems by Rumi and Basho.

Re: *sigh*

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I try to avoid translations as much as I can but sometimes that's just impossible and when both the meaning *and* the music of the language are butchered...that's more than I can bear.

I wonder about the professional pride of some so called translators, though,I'd never allow some 'things' to go out bearing my name on them. :-/

Re: *sigh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem is the system. Translation is usually work-for-hire and the translator has little or no leverage. People tend to be more interested in speed than precision or artistry, and it shows. The very best translators do have leverage, and pick projects where they'll have the time and resources to do things right. Some projects, like Harry Potter or the Bible, are so important to people that the translation had better be both apt and artistic or much mayhem will ensue.

I bet a lot of the translators use a pen name.

Re: *sigh*

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

*nods*, there are some I do love: the Italian translation of 'Watership Down' is wonderful: precise and poetic, it conveys admirably the mood, athmosphere and sense of wonder of the original. Sometimes (as with Harry Potter) one is left wondering at the acrobatic language abilities of the translator (how you express 'muggles' in a different language?),but sometimes it's really depressing realizing just how low the average is.
There's the rush, of course and usually translating is a 'second job' and honest mistakes just happen, but it is the sloppiness, the sense of 'not caring enough to check' that drives me crazy, not to mention the 'ideological' translations, like it happened on a monumental cultural history of Tibet, in which every single instance of the words 'religious' had been translated as 'cultural'.