Sunday, December 2, 2012

translation, traduccions

I have been asked to translate a book.  Yeah, you got that right, an entire book, into...hold on....Catalan.

Now, translations are normally done into one's mother tongue, as the nuances of vocabulary are simply not the same in even the most highly educated non-native speaker, and I am no where near that even.  Not only that, this is not a highly technical dry bit of writing, rather a bright and entertaining sailing log with rich vocabulary and lots of colloquial English.

I am going to have to talk with them, and let them know that this has to be done as a team.  Much as I would love to do this, and I would cause boy would it be good for my Catalan, I cannot possibly do the book justice.  That said, there are few Catalans who would have a grasp of the intricacies of the English, especially where it is related to sailing, so a team is, I think, the solution.

Step by step on this one.

Ahir, alguns em van demanar si pogués traduir un llibre.  Sí, has sentit bé, tot un llibre fins a .....català.

Mira, traduccions normalment van cap al idioma maternal perquè les matís del vocabulari simplement no són tan correcte o conedgut, per un non-natiu, encara que tingui molt de nivell i no m'ho tinc.  A més a més, no és un llibre sec i científic, més aviat és una història lleugera, divertida i entretinguda que utilitza un vocabulari molt ric i molt col·loquial.

Hauré de parlar amb els per dir-los que ho haurem de fer com un equip.  Tan com m'agradaria fer-ho, i milloraria la meva vocabulari com una bestia, simplement, no podia fer-ho prou bé, seria una injustícia al llibre.  Al mateix moment, hi han pocs catalans que podia comprendre les complexitats de l'anglès, especialment sobre el món de velejar, llavors, un equip, crec, seria la millor solució.

Pas a pas aquí.

4 comments:

Sam said...

That is incredibly cool! you'll be great.

Love the new picture of the birds feet, by the way...I haven't been on your official site in a while (just have the goods delivered to my inbox).

Sam : )

Anonymous said...

That's amazing news! A team sounds about right :). I would feel the same if I was asked to translate something from French to anything else, for money. Good luck :)

Anonymous said...

WOW congrats! Sounds very challenging and cool.
I won't even ask how you'll solve the problem of who gets paid for doing what.GM

oreneta said...

Sam, thank you so much for the vote of confidence!

ElP, it is a wee bit nerve wracking, but I think I'll give it a go.

GM, we'll see how that works indeed.