Your assessments - how well does ASOIAF translate?

[Anath]

Well, an even number of people, presided over by someone with a lot of experience, who breaks ties if there are any. Let's say, you have 2 translators and 1 who is heading the team. Each of them does their work separately and then come back to discuss it - after which they come to a final version of the text. It might also help if they first read the whole book and then start their work.

It does sound time-consuming but it might work.

Then again, that's the same principle on which parliaments are built and they aren't exactly the epitomy of efficiency. :dunno:

Find me an engish version of James which is pronounced with an "ai" instead of an "ei" and I'll concede this point.

I also have a little beef with Tywin's translation.

Find me an English text where Jaime is an actual version of James, and I'll concede the point. My point is that when encountered with rare versions of names, I am doing my best to make the name sound rare.

I believe I understand the mechanism behind the Tywin thing. It isn't one I would use but it's perfectly acceptable. Actually, I have a pet peeve with Tam al-Thor in Bulgarian but that's beside the point...

About team work: sounds good but it isn't in reality. We tried something like that in the uni. Never will I subject myself to it in real life. The results will be less than stellar. And let's be real here: when you hear about a publishing house that is ready to pay 3 people to translate one text three times right now, please let me know. Plus, such a thing would make the book about 2 times more expensive.

And please, never, never suggest a thing that might place me in position that is somehow akin to a member of our Parliament. I am a good kid, I swear!

[Buckwheat]

The Dutch translation is really good in my opinion. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't read it in Dutch when Dutch is your native language.

The only bad thing about the translation is that the translators sometimes skip/forget an important sentence.

That ... does not make a really good translation. That makes a VERY bad one.

Oh, my mistake if I didn't make myself clear. He's named Orel here as well, wasn't changed to Orao. I'm not sure if he's ever been called Orel Orao or something as silly. As far as I can remember, the translator just dropped the other word.

That is cool then. Doubling the almost the same word would be silly.

Are the Serbian books in Latin alphabet or in Cyrillic? Just curious.

Well, an even number of people, presided over by someone with a lot of experience, who breaks ties if there are any. Let's say, you have 2 translators and 1 who is heading the team. Each of them does their work separately and then come back to discuss it - after which they come to a final version of the text. It might also help if they first read the whole book and then start their work.

It does sound time-consuming but it might work.

Then again, that's the same principle on which parliaments are built and they aren't exactly the epitomy of efficiency. :dunno:

I ... I just have a feeling it would not work. You would end up with a completely stilistically inconsistent text.

We tried this team work out on the translation seminar, and there it kind of worked, but this was just us trying to learn and nobody had much experience and we mostly joked about it so there was no clashes of interests. The person I worked with also admitted my intuition of the style for that particular text was better. But it would not work, also for the reasons mentioned about no publisher will want to pay for more translators and it would take more time.

I like your parliament comparison. :P

[Mr Fixit]

I never bothered with the translations, I always read English books in the original language. But I did look through the Serbian translation (mostly through the Appendices) in a book store, out of curiosity, to see how the place names and nicknames are translated. Thing is, no matter how good the translation, some things are going to be lost in translation - even if nothing is lost as far as the meaning goes, there are going to be stylistic differences. One consequence of translating the place names and nicknames into Serbian is that they sound a lot more archaic and poetic or just unusual in Serbian, due to the above mentioned difference between the languages - i.e. compound names and compounds in general are not common in Serbian and don't sound as natural as in English. (This is something that, I imagine, German translators don't have to worry about).

I noticed one mistake immediately: when Cat says Hoster called Walder "the late Lord Frey", it was translated as "pokojni" - "dead/dearly departed" instead of "zakasneli" - "arrived late" - which makes no sense and probably has Serbian readers wondering what it's all about. The pun had to be lost, but it should've been translated as "arrived late".

One nickname translation that it stylistically all wrong, IMO, is that of the Hound - translated as "Pseto". There are two big problems with that: first, the hound is not necessarily an offensive word, but pseto definitely is - it's simply an offensive, very contemptuous word for a dog, or someone being compared to one ('dog' is 'pas'). It doesn't connote scary or strong, it's just contemptuous. The even bigger problem, however, is that the word pseto is grammatically neuter, unlike pas, which is grammatically masculine. I have no idea whether the translator chose to make the sentences not exactly grammatically correct but semantically more natural, and had people refer to Sandor in masculine, or grammatically correct but semantically very weird, and had people refer to Sandor in neuter gender. I have to ask Mr. Fixit and Mladen which of these is the case. I once saw someone refer to him as Pseto in neuter on a Serbian GoT forum, and it sounded all sorts of weird - but it would sound even weirder in the book, especially in Sansa's internal thoughts. :laugh: So I'm hoping it's the former rather than the latter...

Although there is no exact equivalent to the hound in Serbian, a much better solution would've been to translate The Hound with 'pas', which is a neutral word for dog and is grammatically masculine, and to use 'pseto' when Joffrey is calling Sandor "dog", which is meant to be offensive.

Hey, I like Pseto! :fencing: :laugh: Really, I do! It definitely has a different connotation than Pas (dog) but I feel it suits Sandor and other people's perception of him very well. Remember that scene in the show, episode 1x02, when Sansa and Sandor talk a bit and then Joff comes along and calls him Dog in such a perfectly contemptuous way? Off with you, Dog! or something like that. Just perfect for Pseto. As for masculine or neuter, I don't remember, sorry, but the only difference would be in accusative case anyhow.

As for late Lord Frey, there was a footnote explaining Martin's wordplay. I think the translator's choice to go with pokojni lord Frej (departed lord Frey) is correct because in all other cases that would be the intended meaning. When we talk about people that recently died, we use those exact words out of respect for the dead (perhaps even more often than in English) and that's exactly the point of Cat's pun. I believe that primary connotation should've been preserved, especially having in mind that Walder is almost a hundred years old so even in that sense it's appropriate. And as I said, there was a footnote.

[Mr Fixit]

Are the Serbian books in Latin alphabet or in Cyrillic? Just curious.

They're in Latin. Most books (and newspapers) these days are.

[TheCrannogDweller]

Find me an English text where Jaime is an actual version of James, and I'll concede the point. My point is that when encountered with rare versions of names, I am doing my best to make the name sound rare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_King

"In her modeling career and early film roles, she used the names Jamie King and James King..."

I believe I understand the mechanism behind the Tywin thing. It isn't one I would use but it's perfectly acceptable. Actually, I have a pet peeve with Tam al-Thor in Bulgarian but that's beside the point...

The german phonetic equivalent of W?

Then again, Тайуин does look a bit ridiculous.

About team work: sounds good but it isn't in reality. We tried something like that in the uni. Never will I subject myself to it in real life. The results will be less than stellar. And let's be real here: when you hear about a publishing house that is ready to pay 3 people to translate one text three times right now, please let me know. Plus, such a thing would make the book about 2 times more expensive.

I ... I just have a feeling it would not work. You would end up with a completely stilistically inconsistent text.

We tried this team work out on the translation seminar, and there it kind of worked, but this was just us trying to learn and nobody had much experience and we mostly joked about it so there was no clashes of interests. The person I worked with also admitted my intuition of the style for that particular text was better. But it would not work, also for the reasons mentioned about no publisher will want to pay for more translators and it would take more time.

Yeah, probably not. Sometimes people are too invested in their egos. :dunno:

And when you start applying economics to it, it goes to hell. :D

Then again, every idea looks expensive in the beginning.

And please, never, never suggest a thing that might place me in position that is somehow akin to a member of our Parliament. I am a good kid, I swear!

Our parliament is a bad joke. I meant real parliaments. :D

[Annara Snow]

Hey, I like Pseto! :fencing: :laugh: Really, I do! It definitely has a different connotation than Pas (dog) but I feel it suits Sandor and other people's perception of him very well. Remember that scene in the show, episode 1x02, when Sansa and Sandor talk a bit and then Joff comes along and calls him Dog in such a perfectly contemptuous way? As for masculine or neuter, I don't remember, sorry, but the only difference would in accusative case anyhow.

As for late Lord Frey, there was a footnote explaining Martin's wordplay. I think the translator's choice to go with pokojni lord Frej (departed lord Frey) is correct because in all other cases that would be the intended meaning. When we talk about people that recently died, we use those exact words out of respect for the dead (perhaps even more often than in English) and that's exactly the point of Cat's pun. I believe that primary connotation should've been preserved, especially having in mind that Walder is almost a hundred years old so even in that sense it's appropriate.

OK, if there's a footnote then it's OK.

I disagree about Pseto. The conversation would work well if dog in these instances - when Joffrey calls him dog (as I suggested in my previous post) - was translated that way, but not his usual nickname. It doesn't work at all when Sansa is thinking about him, and she's always thinking about him as 'the Hound'.

And I don't know what you mean by, it would only matter in the accusative case. It would matter all the time, what with the Serbian language having verb inflections for each of the three genders. Every time someone referred to something he did in past tense, every time someone - say, Sansa - thought about something he did in past sense, while referring to him by his nickname, you would see if it's in masculine or (the grammatically correct) neuter.

For example, imagine a sentence like (Sansa's thoughts during the conversation with Myranda about what goes on in marriage bed):

"Znaš šta se događa u bračnom krevetu?"

Pomislila je na Tiriona, i na Pseto i na to kako ju je poljubilo...

:wacko: :lmao:

[Mr Fixit]

And I don't know what you mean by, it would only matter in the accusative case. It would matter all the time, what with the Serbian language having verb inflections for each of the three genders. Every time someone referred to something he did in past tense, every time someone - say, Sansa - thought about something he did in past sense, while referring to him by his nickname, you would see if it's in masculine or (the grammatically correct) neuter.

Yup! I forgot about verbs! I simply went pseto, pseta, psetu, pseto... and said, hey, it's almost the same! :dunce:

Hmmm, I'd have to check, but I imagine the book used masculine. It would be natural, wouldn't it? Or not. Pseto je došao, sounds OK, to me at least, if you keep in mind it's a man. But Moj Pseto je došao, is all kinds of crazy. Yeah. I don't know. :dunno:

Maybe the books alternated between Pas and Pseto where appropriate? I should really ch.. che... check it out, wha...wha...what's it all about.

[Anath]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_King

"In her modeling career and early film roles, she used the names Jamie King and James King..."

She. Not a male variation of James. You mean, our Jaime should have been given a female name? Have some compassion. It's hard enough for me to go through all Cersei's laments about him being a male her.

The german phonetic equivalent of W?

Then again, Тайуин does look a bit ridiculous.

A mix between transcribing and transliterating, I believe. We're still saddled with George Washington and Washington Irving translated differently, so what's a little artistry in translation when it's good for our tongues? It isn't as if someone actually named Tywin is going to protest. Though I wonder how people named Harry Potter feel... Not about how their names are pronounced. But it must be weird. "Hey, I'm Harry Potter, nice to meet you."

Yeah, probably not. Sometimes people are too invested in their egos. :dunno:

And when you start applying economics to it, it goes to hell. :D

Then again, every idea looks expensive in the beginning.

The problem is, the idea won't progress past the beginning. Economy and stuff. It won't last past the first two books.

Our parliament is a bad joke. I meant real parliaments. :D

Ah, good to know this. I was already envisioning my father doing something terrible in Roman/Stark style to wash the stain on the family honour by removing his tainted daughter from the world of living.

[halbard]

I own all the books in English, and have given a quick browse on the portuguese translations, and they are horrible. Whoever translated it should be hanged.

[Mladen]

I never bothered with the translations, I always read English books in the original language. But I did look through the Serbian translation (mostly through the Appendices) in a book store, out of curiosity, to see how the place names and nicknames are translated. Thing is, no matter how good the translation, some things are going to be lost in translation - even if nothing is lost as far as the meaning goes, there are going to be stylistic differences. One consequence of translating the place names and nicknames into Serbian is that they sound a lot more archaic and poetic or just unusual in Serbian, due to the above mentioned difference between the languages - i.e. compound names and compounds in general are not common in Serbian and don't sound as natural as in English. (This is something that, I imagine, German translators don't have to worry about).

I noticed one mistake immediately: when Cat says Hoster called Walder "the late Lord Frey", it was translated as "pokojni" - "dead/dearly departed" instead of "zakasneli" - "arrived late" - which makes no sense and probably has Serbian readers wondering what it's all about. The pun had to be lost, but it should've been translated as "arrived late".

One nickname translation that it stylistically all wrong, IMO, is that of the Hound - translated as "Pseto". There are two big problems with that: first, the hound is not necessarily an offensive word, but pseto definitely is - it's simply an offensive, very contemptuous word for a dog, or someone being compared to one ('dog' is 'pas'). It doesn't connote scary or strong, it's just contemptuous. The even bigger problem, however, is that the word pseto is grammatically neuter, unlike pas, which is grammatically masculine. I have no idea whether the translator chose to make the sentences not exactly grammatically correct but semantically more natural, and had people refer to Sandor in masculine, or grammatically correct but semantically very weird, and had people refer to Sandor in neuter gender. I have to ask Mr. Fixit and Mladen which of these is the case. I once saw someone refer to him as Pseto in neuter on a Serbian GoT forum, and it sounded all sorts of weird - but it would sound even weirder in the book, especially in Sansa's internal thoughts. :laugh: So I'm hoping it's the former rather than the latter...

Although there is no exact equivalent to the hound in Serbian, a much better solution would've been to translate The Hound with 'pas', which is a neutral word for dog and is grammatically masculine, and to use 'pseto' when Joffrey is calling Sandor "dog", which is meant to be offensive.

I think most precise translation for the Hound would actually be "dzukela", but I think that would be too much...

I generally think Serbian translators did great job in translating geographical names. They make sense, and I generally liked them better than Croatians. We also have to understand that some names have to be translated due to "characterization by name", especially with bastards - Snow (Snezni), Flowers (Cvetni), Rivers (Recni) etc. I have to say that I dislike the translation of Tully (Tuli) and I think I will never get accustomed to it. Although, they made a misstep with Kettleblacks. They should have also been translated according to "characterization by name", but somehow they are not. Also, I hate reading Kejtlin, and I think they should have translated it as Ketlin.

I agree with you Annara, especially regarding "the late lord Frey" situation

The only trouble now, that with translations, I am simply unable to participate in any national forums. I am complete ignorant in Serbian ASOIAF :)

Also, Annara, do you hate (genitiv imenice Dorna - Dornea)? It always bugged me...

[TheCrannogDweller]

She. Not a male variation of James. You mean, our Jaime should have been given a female name? Have some compassion. It's hard enough for me to go through all Cersei's laments about him being a male her.

The gender doesn't matter. It's a unisex name, like Alex.

A mix between transcribing and transliterating, I believe. We're still saddled with George Washington and Washington Irving translated differently, so what's a little artistry in translation when it's good for our tongues? It isn't as if someone actually named Tywin is going to protest. Though I wonder how people named Harry Potter feel... Not about how their names are pronounced. But it must be weird. "Hey, I'm Harry Potter, nice to meet you."

It's a common enough name, I guess. But it probably makes for a very good conversation-starter. :D

Ah, good to know this. I was already envisioning my father doing something terrible in Roman/Stark style to wash the stain on the family honour by removing his tainted daughter from the world of living.

Nah, no father would do such a thing.

Your grandparents on the other hand are quite capable. Especially if they're part of the old red brigade and you didn't vote for their party. My grandma still can't forgive me that I voted for BB in 2009. :D

[lovos]

The Spanish version is good IMO, but I hate the "Reek Rhymes" in Spanish

"Hediondo, Hediondo eres débil en el fondo"... it hurts me :'(. Same with "Jon Nieve" and "Invernalia"

I watched a couple of episodes of the show's first season in Spanish and that alone convinced me of buying the books in English. I remember they translated Kingslayer as "ejecutor de reyes", ugh. It sounds awkward, it made me cringe.

Besides, the translations available at book shops here are really expensive.

first post from a long time lurker :)

[Mr Fixit]

I just remembered one hilarious Croatian translation I noticed somewhere. Not exactly incorrect, but all kinds of wrong.

Eyrie was translated as Orlovo gnijezdo. Serbian and Croatian language(s) don't have a word for aerie so we settled for the next best thing. The problem is Orlovo gnijezdo means Eagle's Nest. So the seat of House Arryn that has a falcon on their coat of arms is named after eagles! :drunk:

Fortunately, in Serbia it's Gnezdo sokolovo, meaning Falcon's Nest. Also, the Serbian translator inverted the order of the words which gave the name a more poetic or archaic touch.

[Mr Fixit]

"Znaš šta se događa u bračnom krevetu?"

Pomislila je na Tiriona, i na Pseto i na to kako ju je poljubilo...

:wacko: :lmao:

Now that's all kinds of kinky! :whip:

[Atropis the Elf]

Are you greek?

That's pretty much what I did too. I was looking for how they translated "direwolf".

The problem with the names is consistency. Some translate really well and convey the sense of familiarity they do in english, whlie others would be awkward and others would not translate at all. Blackwater translates well, (though because it is Blackwater Rush, I would have gone for Μαυροχείμαρος), the Trident with its teath translate well, too, but then you'd have a river called Mander right next to them. Strom's End is another issue. It is short, catchy and evocative and speaks about the history of the place and why it is a formiddable castle. Howevere greek people reading "Θυελλοθραύστης" would think it is a fixture on a port. The same applies to names you can translate Strong but you can't translate Robert. One could try to work it as part of the First Man/Andals cultural differences and nomenclature, but it is impossible to be consistent with the original. Worse, they are like the butterfly effect in that they can force you to take greater liberties with the text or lead to outright dead ends. Not that leaving them in the english is much better, as they it can make entire passages meanignless in the translation when Martin plays with the meaning of the names.

Archaisms would be good for ASoIaF. It conveys the pseudo-Medieval feel Martin tries to infuse in his books.

Yes, I am. About the direwolf, I think they have translated it as "ανταρόλυκος".

[Anath]

The gender doesn't matter. It's a unisex name, like Alex.

Not really a unisex name. It's a female name. I can't think of an Englishman named Jaime. And it really isn't a popular pet name. If GRRM wanted to have something really close to James, he could have just changed a letter. Like, Jamys. He didn't.

I cannot claim it for sure, of course, but to me, it does sound like GRRM meant it to be not quite usual.

It's a common enough name, I guess. But it probably makes for a very good conversation-starter. :D

Yeah, that's an option I really hadn't considered. Thanks for cheering me up!

Nah, no father would do such a thing.

Your grandparents on the other hand are quite capable. Especially if they're part of the old red brigade and you didn't vote for their party. My grandma still can't forgive me that I voted for BB in 2009. :D

If I ever vote for the red brigade, my grandfather will never let me set a foot in their place. So my options are quite limited: I can't make it to the Parliament because my dad and honour... I can't affiliate myself with the red bridage because my grandfather... I'm destined to forever be a lowly translator. Yay me, huh?

[Mr Fixit]

Not really a unisex name. It's a female name. I can't think of an Englishman named Jaime.

Well, there's Jamie Bamber, an English actor (yay for Battlestar Galactica!)

[Anath]

Well, there's Jamie Bamber, an English actor (yay for Battlestar Galactica!)

My point, exactly. Jaime and Jamie. Jamie is a popular version of James. Jaime isn't. It sounds off key for an English name, so it has to sound off key when translated. I don't have a problem with the way it is translated. It might have been done in various other ways and I don't think I would have had problem with any of them. What matters to me if for the oddity to be preserved.

[Clariana]

I watched a couple of episodes of the show's first season in Spanish and that alone convinced me of buying the books in English. I remember they translated Kingslayer as "ejecutor de reyes", ugh. It sounds awkward, it made me cringe.

Besides, the translations available at book shops here are really expensive.

first post from a long time lurker :)

"ejecutor de reyes" sounds really clumsy especially when historically the prefix "mata" has been bandied about so much ("Santiago matamoros") so really "matareyes" would be much better.

I translate Spanish into English but mainly legal and business texts.

Oh and bienvenido.

[TheCrannogDweller]

Not really a unisex name. It's a female name. I can't think of an Englishman named Jaime. And it really isn't a popular pet name. If GRRM wanted to have something really close to James, he could have just changed a letter. Like, Jamys. He didn't.

My point, exactly. Jaime and Jamie. Jamie is a popular version of James. Jaime isn't.

Just admit that you're wrong, it's not that hard. :D

It's a pretty straightforward name. It's not even french.

Yeah, that's an option I really hadn't considered. Thanks for cheering me!

You're welcome. :)

If I ever vote for the red brigade, my grandfather will never let me set a foot in their place. So my options are quite limited: I can't make it to the Parliament because my dad and honour... I can't affiliate myself with the red bridage because my grandfather... I'm destined to forever be a lowly translator. Yay me, huh?

Well, just because you're a translator doesn't mean that you're a lowly one. Translating is both an art and a calling. You're a linguistical alchemist, turning knowledge from one language into another. You should be proud of that. :)

Oh, and you seem to have an interesting family. :D

Edit: And apparently, it is not possible to change the tag of the quote-line. :D