The Witcher fully translated to English

[Yora]

Hell, about time. :smallbiggrin:

Seems like the last two books of the Witcher series and the collection The Sword of Destiny are finally getting translated into English. 20 years after the rest of the world. (Source (http://fantasy-faction.com/forum/fantasy-book-discussion/more-witcher-more-witcher!!!/). The guy usually knows what he talks about, probably heard it straight from the publisher)

[Man on Fire]

Well, I wonder how will English-speaking fans react to the books, especially to the last one. It has some stuff that is probbly going to flip their minds like

Galahad

[Morty]

Hopefully the translation's quality will be better than that of Last Wish and Blood of the Elves, both of which aren't too great.

[Yora]

When I read Last Wish in English, I never groaned in agony at obviously terrible sentences.

I've seen a lot worse translations of books into German. :smallannoyed:

[Mad Hattington]

When I read Last Wish in English, I never groaned in agony at obviously terrible sentences.

I've seen a lot worse translations of books into German. :smallannoyed:

The Witcher novels at least were pretty good as far as that goes. Now if you want to talk about the new translation of the discworld novels or LotR...:smallfrown:

[Eldan]

"New" translations of discworld? I read the older versions. I rarely noticed when I read them, but there's a file online where someone compares English/German side by side. They were atrocious. Always were. From the terrible titles down to the "let's just not translate that" approach to all the puns.

By new translation of LotR, do you mean the one where the translator thought they should modernize Tolkien's language? Because I thought it was hilarious.

[Yora]

Sagt der Mund von Sauron: "Äh, Du kommst hier ned rein!" :smallbiggrin:

If in any way possible, never read translations at all! Thankfully, pretty much all writers I have some interest in either write in English or German, that helps a lot. If I have to suffer through a Polish-German or Polish-English translation this once, I will endure it.

Actually, I think even the English translation of The Last Wish was much better to read than a lot of Sword & Sorcery originally written in English.

[Eldan]

I don't know. I have a really, really old German translation of LotR and I love it dearly. Mostly because the translator was very probably a linguist themselves, with a deep respect for Tolkien, but because Tolkien himself also commented on it and gave several suggestions. There's even a lengthy extra appendix where the translator discusses their translation choices and gives a few possible alternatives. (One I remember: "We might have translated "Shire" as "Gau", but decided that the associations these days were too unfortunate".)

[Morty]

When I read Last Wish in English, I never groaned in agony at obviously terrible sentences.

I've seen a lot worse translations of books into German. :smallannoyed:

I'm not familiar with the German translation. I wish I knew German well enough to see how the books fare in it, but I do not. As far as the English translation of those two books go, they're not bad, really. They're just not very skilfully done and too much of the writer's style is lost somewhere along the way. Of course, I'm a translator myself, so I have a different perspective.


I don't know. I have a really, really old German translation of LotR and I love it dearly. Mostly because the translator was very probably a linguist themselves, with a deep respect for Tolkien, but because Tolkien himself also commented on it and gave several suggestions. There's even a lengthy extra appendix where the translator discusses their translation choices and gives a few possible alternatives. (One I remember: "We might have translated "Shire" as "Gau", but decided that the associations these days were too unfortunate".)

Tolkien provides us with a rare case of a writer who actively participated in the translation of his books, at least into some languages. I know he did it with the Polish translation as well. But then, he was Tolkien.

[Man on Fire]

Tolkien was translated to polish at least three times by different people. One of those translations was just atrocious, with translator changing every name to something that sounds more Polish. Baggins became Bagosz.

[Eldan]

They changed every name in German, too. To something with the same roots and meaning, though.

[Morty]

That one, yes. I've read it and done a presentation about it. Apart from the aggressive domestication, it's actually not bad. Some translation choices are better than in the first translation, frankly. I like the style, too. But bulldozing over the names just gets in the way.

[Mad Hattington]

Sagt der Mund von Sauron: "Äh, Du kommst hier ned rein!" :smallbiggrin:


Und dann der Gandalf so:"Verp*ss dich." :smallwink:
Luckily, it wasn't THAT bad, but it was ...bizzare. For a book that should read as if Tolkien had written it in 1999 (which is a ridiculous statement btw), it still was way too close to the old translation, while taking away quite a lot of the charme by making some rather...interesting choices during the translation. From my POV, it basically took away most of the things that "older" readers liked, while offering nothing interesting to younger people, who wouldn't have read the older translation.



"New" translations of discworld? I read the older versions. I rarely noticed when I read them, but there's a file online where someone compares English/German side by side. They were atrocious. Always were. From the terrible titles down to the "let's just not translate that" approach to all the puns.

I actually found the older translation to be quite good, I have however only read one book of Pratchett in english so far, something I plan to change in the near future. But if you already didn't like the "old" translations, let's just say the "new" ones are even worse. As in absolutely and utterly disgusting. They also have these covers:smallyuk::
http://www.randomhouse.de/content/edition/covervoila/179_54705_125712_xl.jpg

[Eldan]

What the bloody hell. Why.

I mean, why would you take the gorgeously painted ones in the English version and then... do the exact same scene in what looks like early 90s video game cutscenes?

Also, you should totalyl read Pratchett in English, even if you have already read it in German. I did both, and it's a delight.

It's worth looking at this, by the way. It's an old file listing some of the worst mistranslations in those books.

http://www.ankh-morpork.de/index.php?seite=3700


My favourite is when they translate "eight foot (tall) slave" as "eight-legged slave".


Oh yeah, another good one. "It shouldn't be possible to hiss a sentence with no "s" in it..." Said, in the German version, after a sentence with two double-s'es.

[Divayth Fyr]

That one, yes. I've read it and done a presentation about it. Apart from the aggressive domestication, it's actually not bad. Some translation choices are better than in the first translation, frankly. I like the style, too. But bulldozing over the names just gets in the way.
I couldn't get through his translations of both LotR and Dune due to the names (although even in the bit of the former I've read, he changed some bits - "W Mordorze, moc którego zwycięży, nie chciana." definately differs from what the line was originally).

[Morty]

He does change a lot of things, including the names that were rendered in Polish in the original translation - Tolkien basically advised Skibniewska about what she should and shouldn't domesticate, from what I remember. Sometimes it does feel as though he's just trying to be different for its own sake. But sometimes his translations are better - for example, "Łazik" as a translation for "Strider" sounds more like the derogatory nickname it's supposed to be.

[Divayth Fyr]

This is certainly true - a part of my problem with his job was that I first read Skibniewska's original version from the 60s, so it was hard to get through things like "krzatowe kalosze" ;) From what I've heard his updated version is much better, but I never could make myself check it out.