On translation

[marycrawford]

ahary has translated my Hercules story Five Things That Never Happened to Iolaus of Thebes, and it's now available in Russian on the Iolausian Corner. I've had some bad experiences with translations that I hadn't even been approached about, but this is different, and a strange and flattering thing - to read your own story in another language, transformed with great skill and sensitivity. I particularly like what she did with Charon, who uses some fantastic expressions that my dictionary doesn't even list.

In talking to Ahary, I was struck by her comment:

Sex scenes and fighting scenes are the hardest for me. We don`t distinguish the same body parts, and even if we do, they often don`t move the same way as in English. I translated a book once where the hero`s stabbed toe was an important part of the plot and I was stuck with "палец на ноге" for hundred plus pages and author didn`t even specify which toe it was. *g*

The word for 'toe' and 'finger' is the same in Russian. So is the word for 'arm' and 'hand', and the word for 'leg' and 'foot'. And this seems perfectly natural when reading Russian novels, but imagine having to translate an English one. Or even a slash story.

Comments

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Heh, now I'm thinking of 'het kan net/het kan niet'. Interesting how languages can diverge like that.

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh, good one! I'd never realised the potential for misunderstanding on that one before.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Okay, the last time I closed Opera and forgot to log back in, LJ would give me grief about having to be a logged in user, *or* choosing 'post anonymously'. I guess they changed that bit of coding. Stupid code changes. Grrr. I guess if I'd bothered to use a not-default icon I would have noticed, but I don't think I have a clever word-stuff icon. Grrr!