Bad Translations

[Dee3]

Has anyone ever read books by foreign authors only to have a crummy translation of their work?

Recently I read two books by Yansunari Kawabata a nobel prize winning lauderate. However as I have said in other threads the translation sucked.

Anyone else have a problem with this?

[Aaron Kashtan]

The trouble is that it's difficult to judge the quality of a translation if you can't read the original. You can only compare it to other translations that seem to be better.

I have heard that Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are awful.

[Roquefort Raider]

I've never disliked a whole book because of bad translation, but I am often annoyed by translators who aren't familiar with fairly common English expressions.

The most surprising example of mistranslation I've read is in a biochemistry book: the original English text said that the source of spermaceti, an oil used in the perfume industry, was the sperm whale; that was mistranslated in French as "sperm de baleine", or whale sperm.

I can just imagine the agents of a perfume company trying to make a few male whales happy to get access to the spermaceti...

[Roquefort Raider]

The trouble is that it's difficult to judge the quality of a translation if you can't read the original. You can only compare it to other translations that seem to be better.

That's why I really can't say what I believe to be the best translation of Homer. I can merely say which one I enjoyed the most. How scholars would sneer at me!

[Dee3]

The trouble is that it's difficult to judge the quality of a translation if you can't read the original. You can only compare it to other translations that seem to be better.

I have heard that Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are awful.

True, and I can't read Japanese (wish I could though) Recently I read Be With You. by Takuji Ichikawa translated by Terry Gallager and the writing flowed really well, However in Kawabata's books translated by Martin Holm and another guy who's name I can't remember don't they seem jerky and disjointed, which I got the feeling wasn't the authors intent at all or maybe it's just me.

Thanks for the idea,Maybe I should try and find better translations of his books,

and I agree with Raider that I enjoyed the book but It was diffcult to to the poor translation as well as the misuse of basic english phrases and prose.

[Subotai]

That's why I really can't say what I believe to be the best translation of Homer. I can merely say which one I enjoyed the most. How scholars would sneer at me!

So whose translation did you enjoy most?

[Donald M.]

The trouble is that it's difficult to judge the quality of a translation if you can't read the original.

Oh, sometimes you can. I don't have to be able to read it in its original language to know that the english language edition of the novel Battle Royale (Published by VIZ, which mostly translates manga, a warning sign right off the bat.) is a really, really badly translated.

At least, I hope the original isn't that awful.

[Dee3]

Oh, sometimes you can. I don't have to be able to read it in its original language to know that the english language edition of the novel Battle Royale (Published by VIZ, which mostly translates manga, a warning sign right off the bat.) is a really, really badly translated.

At least, I hope the original isn't that awful.

Okay but Viz also Translated be with you and did a a bang up job with it as well.

[Roquefort Raider]

So whose translation did you enjoy most?


Fagle's. Not that there's anything wrong with Fitzgerald's, but Fagle's agreed with me a little bit more. (I think that small details like spelling "Cyclops" instead of Kyklops" played a part in it). I must admit, though, that seeing Chase's and Perry's translation of "the Iliad" dedicated "To Helen" was pretty funny.

[Roquefort Raider]

I can't say that it hurt my enjoyment of the book, but I was a bit disappointed to learn that my French version of Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi was not translated from the original Japanese, but from an English translation.

Couldn't the publishers find a Japanese-French translator? I guess they're not as common as English-French ones and therefore demand a higher salary...

[Sandoz]

Oh, sometimes you can. I don't have to be able to read it in its original language to know that the english language edition of the novel Battle Royale (Published by VIZ, which mostly translates manga, a warning sign right off the bat.) is a really, really badly translated.

At least, I hope the original isn't that awful.
Though I can't comment on the accuracy of the translation itself, the Battle Royale novel really needed better editors. There was a ridiculous amount of typos.