poll: How cut and dry do you like your go information

[often]

i will be doing some translation/interpretation soon
just curious how people like their go information, cut and dry or with some or a lot of liberties taken with the translation

[DrStraw]

Well, the poll and the subject line are not the same.

For a translation I prefer a simple literal one within the limits of linguistic license. But for the most part, original writings which are cut and dry are rather bland.

So I guess the bottom line is I don't like to read boring stuff, whether it is original or translated. Give me Nakayama Noriyuki any day over almost any other writer.

[often]

to clarify then, this involves actual talking, not just words on a page.

[EdLee]

The most important point is don't transmit wrong information.

Examples:

• If a cut-and-dry version transmits wrong info, it's bad.
• If a spiced up version transmits wrong info, it's bad.
• If a very loose, lots-of-liberties-taken version transmits wrong info, it's bad.

After you're absolutely sure you transmit the correct info,
then it's the Wild Wild West: you cannot please everybody.

To this day, movie studios and book publishers still don't know
what makes a blockbuster or best seller. ( If they did, then
every movie or book would be a killer! The fact that they are not,
that they all just fall on a bell curve proves nobody knows how. )
Every time, they gamble.
Of course, since a lot of $$$ is at stake, they try to stick to
the standard "formulas". So we get the cookie cutter 3-Act Hollywood movies.

You probably will need a few iterations to "find your voice," literally.
Sounds like an adventure.

It's the same process as Go: work on your basics, review, rinse & repeat !

[wineandgolover]

I voted for option two. I think it is more important to transmit the spirit of the original, rather than a word-for-word translation. Sometimes literal translations can be too awkward or boring.

That said, I also agree with Ed. Don't just make stuff up like, for example, recommending a hane when that wasn't in the original and you aren't 100% sure that is what the original intended. But skipping / replacing a pun that would be funny in Mandarin but meaningless in English makes sense.

[Bill Spight]

I like

Accuracy

Clarity

Vividness

in that order.

[gowan]

I want translations to read well in the target language, in other words to be well-written in the target language. Of course the information should be accurate, too. When I read translations that are too literal I often find them annoying because they translate style that doesn't work in the target language and I find myself "re-translating" myself while muttering to myself. Somewhere I read that Nakayama Noriyuki 7p said that errors in go books continue in the literature for 30 years after the book was translated. He was referring to joseki mistakes but ...

[gowan]

to clarify then, this involves actual talking, not just words on a page.

If this has to do with translating comments by a pro during a teaching lesson then accuracy is essential. If you are translating for a presentation to a large audience there is an entertainment aspect involved. The speaker might make a joke, for example, and if you can't make it sound funny you might have the native speakers in the audience laughing and the people who don't know the language left wondering what was so funny. Literal translations also can get into trouble with idioms which come out sounding weird when translated literally. I remember a story about a machine translator from English to Russian which made the English idiom "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" into something like "The vodka is strong but the meat is rotten".

[Rowen]

As long as the lesson is accurately presented and understandable I'm good. I do like a little spice - it keeps me entertained as long as it doesn't stray from the subject matter to greatly.

Translating Asian languages (Japanese in my experience) can be a formidable task. One that even 'professional' translators have a hard time making the conversation flow. This is something I've noticed fansubbers excelling at. Making the dialogue flow and entertaining and not to clinical and ridged.

[EdLee]

Translating Asian languages (Japanese in my experience) can be a formidable task.

Mr. Seidensticker ?

[Abyssinica]

As long as the lesson is accurately presented and understandable I'm good. I do like a little spice - it keeps me entertained as long as it doesn't stray from the subject matter to greatly.

Translating Asian languages (Japanese in my experience) can be a formidable task. One that even 'professional' translators have a hard time making the conversation flow. This is something I've noticed fansubbers excelling at. Making the dialogue flow and entertaining and not to clinical and ridged.

I have the problem of, when people ask me what some sentence means in Japanese, of either making the sentence sound really really bad, or just flat out saying, "I don't know how to express this in English." (I guess a good example would be .....ようにする)

But then again I'm not a translator so it's not a problem for me.

[Bill Spight]

Translating Asian languages (Japanese in my experience) can be a formidable task.

Mr. Seidensticker ?

James Legge

Legge did not have it easy, and, I hear, made a lot of missteps. Lin Yutang criticized Legge for writing "opportunities of time, vouchsafed by Heaven" instead of "the weather".