Jump to content

Your assessments - how well does ASOIAF translate?


Iona

Recommended Posts

Meh, I like my Řekoříčí. It's fantasy, the land of imagination. :P If we go by mother tongue equivalents only, we will end up with Říčiny for Riverrun, Letnice for Summerhall, Sadová for Highgarden, Dvůr králové for King's Landing, Zlatá hora for Casterley Rock, Zimnice for Winterfell, Harrenovo hradiště for Harrenhal, etc.



IMHO, in some cases translators just cannot win; I would like someone to translate Logen Ninefingers into Czech in such a way it sounds natural. Logen Devítiprsťák is downright terrible IMHO, but what do you want to do with it? You either let it be (then the meaning of "Ninefingers" could be lost to some, while others will be every other paragraph reminded they're reading a translation) or change the very un-Slavic Logen into Láďa or something like that.



Generally I think that names should be translated when their meaning somehow relates to the character's qualities... but then, I dare not imagine how the readers familiar with English original would react to "Stark" being translated. I wouldn't care for it myself in this particular case. House of Strohý ("cold"/"reserved")? Or is it House of Tvrdý ("hard"/"harsh")? Yeah, no.



The one ASoIaF name translation I really like (I could go as far as to say I refer it to the original) is Lord Krvovrán (krev+vrána= blood+crow) for Lord Bloodraven. As a translation it's not perfect because a crow isn't the same bird as a raven, but they're fairly similar and Bloodraven later in life become a "crow" anyway. It also sounds better, IMHO.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a fascinating topic. I'm studying to be a translator so I'm very keen on this kind of stuff. My native tongue is Spanish, and I read the books in Spanish first.



I actually love the Spanish translation. I think it's beautifully written and she got everything to sound "medieval" thanks to a wonderful word-choice. All bastard names, places and nicknames are translated, which I am totally for. Of course, for those of us who speak English and read the books in English it can sound weird to hear "Jon Nieve" o "Invernalia" at the beginning, but we have to think of those who speak exclusively Spanish. "Jon Nieve" doesn't sound weird for them, it sounds just right, and to their brains it carries the same meaning than "Snow" for an English-speaker, which is the whole point of a translation (as it's been explained to us in Translation class) Also, things like the reference to "snow" on Melisandre's prophecies wouldn't work at all.



Bastard names are easy enough, but with places she had to get a little more creative: and the results are terrific. Some of my favourites are "Bastión de Tormentas" for "Storm's End" (it sounds so majestic and powerful) and "Antigua" for "Oldtown". Nicknames were, I guess, far more difficult, but she did a pretty good job (some of them, like "Matarreyes" for "Kingslayer" I would even dare say I like the sound in Spanish more) In other cases, the nickname may sound a bit awkward, specially for those of us who know the original: but English just has more ways of creating nicknames than Spanish does. You can put two nouns together and create a word, when in Spanish you need the two nouns separately and a preposition. Example: "Richard Lionheart = Ricardo Corazón de León" so "Lady Stoneheart" = "Lady Corazón de Piedra" and "Lord Bloodraven" = "Lord Cuervo de Sangre". It sounds better with a single word like in English, but I can't think of any other way.



Then there are wonderful suffixes in English like "-born" which don't have a translation in Spanish. "Daenerys Stormborn" is one of my favourite nicknames in ASOIAF, but in Spanish it ended up like "Daenerys de la Tormenta", which doesn't sound half as well because it misses the sense of "born of something". Then again, the only other possibility I can think about is "Hija de la Tormenta" (daughter of the storm), but that is too long to the way it is used almost as part of her name when she is introduced.



There are then inevitable translation losses: Cat of the Canals translates as "Gata de los Canales", and the sounds is pretty great in Spanish: but the reference to her mother's name is lost.



I also want to comment on "Reek" and the rhymes. I have read some interviews to the translator and she always tells this anecdote. When she first ran into "Reek", she translated it as "Hediondo", and it's not a bad idea: but, of course, she didn't know she would have to search rhymes in the following books :lol: Now it's kind of her nightmare, because there aren't many words that rhyme with "Hediondo" in Spanish.



PD: Sorry for the never-ending post :blush: But I see you were talking about the pronunciation of "Jaime" and, indeed, it's an important issue here in Spain; at least an issue I always argue about with my friends :lol: "Jaime" is a very, very, very common name in Spain (I know lots of people called like that" and the pronunciation is of course completely different. So all the Spaniards (and Latin-Americans I guess) that read the books in Spanish pronounce his name in the Spanish way, and they usually don't find out about the real pronunciation until they watch the TV show :lol:


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meh, I like my Řekoříčí. It's fantasy, the land of imagination. :P If we go by mother tongue equivalents only, we will end up with Říčiny for Riverrun, Letnice for Summerhall, Sadová for Highgarden, Dvůr králové for King's Landing, Zlatá hora for Casterley Rock, Zimnice for Winterfell, Harrenovo hraditě for Harrenhal, etc.

IMHO, in some cases translators just cannot win; I would like someone to translate Logen Ninefingers into Czech in such a way it sounds natural. Logen Devítiprsťák is downright terrible IMHO, but what do you want to do with it? You either let it be (then the meaning of "Ninefingers" could be lost to some, while others will be every other paragraph reminded they're reading a translation) or change the very un-Slavic Logen into Láďa or something like that.

Generally I think that names should be translated when their meaning somehow relates to the character's qualities... but then, I dare not imagine how the readers familiar with English original would react to "Stark" being translated. I wouldn't care for it myself in this particular case. House of Strohý ("cold"/"reserved")? Or is it House of Tvrdý ("hard"/"harsh")? Yeah, no.

The one ASoIaF name translation I really like (I could go as far as to say I refer it to the original) is Lord Krvovrán (krev+vrána= blood+crow) for Lord Bloodraven. As a translation it's not perfect because a crow isn't the same bird as a raven, but they're fairly similar and Bloodraven later in life become a "crow" anyway. It also sounds better, IMHO.

I love your post! The list of places got me in the first place, Láďa had me giggling aloud and House of Tvrdý just nailed it! :-D

Btw, it also never occurred to me that "-točí" in Řekotočí comes from "tok", I was always wondering where and why are the waters turning ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love your post! The list of places got me in the first place, Láďa had me giggling aloud and House of Tvrdý just nailed it! :-D

Btw, it also never occurred to me that "-točí" in Řekotočí comes from "tok", I was always wondering where and why are the waters turning ;-)

Thanks!

"Láďa Devítiprsťák" truly does not evoke the image of a fearsome warrior. It's a name for a weekend cottager who managed to cut off one of his fingers with a chain saw. :D But it sounds nice (I think).

Tbh, I don't know if I would ever think of the "tok" interpretation if I didn't know the English original.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh my. Watched GoT season 3 episodes yesterday, as they are currently being shown by the Finnish National Broadcasting company YLE. It would seem the subtitles follow the translation choices made by the translator of the books, and I was horrified to see that the word "warg" had been translated into a Finnish word that actually means "shapechanger". That's like.... sooo wrong. :(


Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

Interesting thread!
English is not my mother language (I'm Italian) and I read the books both in Italian and in English.

In AGOT, instead of a stag killing the direwolf, it was translated as a unicorn (was it in Italy?).

Yes, it was...
Here in Italy stag was translate unicorn. The translator justified himself saying that, when the book came out in 1999 (in Italy), it was almost unknown, there were not many readers and unicorn "seems more fantasy than a stag". No comment... But there were translation mistakes that are even worse...
The worst was in A Clash of Kings, when Dany visits the House of the Undying.

Italian:

Su un torreggiante trono irto di protuberanze acuminate, sedeva un vecchio riccamente vestito, dagli occhi neri e dai lunghi capelli grigio argentei.


«Lascia che diventi il re di ossa carbonizzate e di carne bruciata» disse l'uomo sul trono a un altro uomo più in basso. «Lascia che diventi 1) il re delle ceneri.»
Drogon emise un urlo stridulo, i suoi artigli scavavano nella seta e nella pelle. Il re sul frastagliato scranno di metallo non parve udire. Dany avanzò verso di lui. 2)
Viserys. Fu quello il suo primo pensiero. Ma non era così. L'uomo sul trono di lame d'acciaio aveva gli stessi capelli di suo fratello 3), ma i suoi occhi erano neri come ossidiana, non violetti.
«Aegon» disse il sovrano rivolto alla donna che stava allattando un neonato su un grande letto di legno. «Quale nome migliore di questo per un re?»
«Comporrai una canzone per lui?» chiese la donna.
«Ha già una canzone» rispose il re 4). «È il principe che venne promesso, e il suo canto è il canto del ghiaccio e del fuoco.»
Sollevò lo sguardo. I suoi occhi incontrarono quelli di Daenerys. Per un fugace momento, parve vederla, là in piedi oltre le porte di bronzo.
«Deve essercene un altro» fu impossibile dire a chi l'uomo sul trono di lame stesse rivolgendosi, se alla donna con il bimbo in braccio o a Dany. «Il drago ha tre teste.» L'uomo si alzò, raggiunse il sedile vicino alla finestra, prese un'arpa e fece scivolare le dita sulle corde argentee dello strumento. Una delicata tristezza riempì la sala mentre le figure dell'uomo, della donna e del bimbo si dissolvevano nelle brume del mattino. Soltanto il suono dell'arpa rimase a guidare Dany mentre proseguiva.



English:

Upon a towering barbed throne sat an old man in rich robes, an old man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair.


Let him be 1) king over charred bones and cooked meat,” he said to a man below him. “Let him be the king of ashes.”
Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on. 2)
Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother’s hair 3), but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac.

“Aegon,” he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. “What better name for a king?”
“Will you make a song for him?” the woman asked.
“He has a song,” the man 4) replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.”
He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door.
“There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.” He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.



1) Lascia che diventi in Italian is ambiguous, because it could be translate both Let him be and Let me be, so it was better add the direct object of the sentence.
2) Dany avanzò verso di lui is a bad translation, because it means Dany moved towards him, not Dany moved on. It's DIFFERENT!
3) L'uomo sul trono di lame d'acciaio aveva gli stessi capelli di suo fratello is totally wrong, because it gives wrong informations to the reader. In English it could be translated as The man on the iron throne had her brother’s hair, but there is no man on the iron throne in the English sentence! The man on the throne was Aerys, in the previous vision, but this one is Rhaegar, NOT Aerys! The translation is totally confusing: I had to read it in English to understand that there were two different men in this scene! :bang:
4) Il re could be translated the king, but in English Martin wrote the man, not the king...

So, English is better, but don't misunderstand me: Italian translation is not so bad (House of the Undying is the worst case, but I think the translator didn't understand who was Martin talking about so he interpreted it wrong and his effort to help the readers just made it worse), but I prefer English version anyway. ^_^

Fortunately, the translator didn't change character's names: Jon remained Snow, not Neve and so on (but nicknames are translated). He translated places' name: Winterfell became Grande Inverno (Great Winter), for example.

The translator maintained original names (Snow, Reek and so on) but, when it was necessary, he included a translation of the name, without being pedantic or didactic. He simply included it in the sentence in a rather natural way and I like it very much.
For example, he uses the name Reek and make it rhyme with English words, but he also says what do they mean. :) I know it sounds bad, but believe me, it is not bad at all!

The problem is at times certain sentences simply loose the double meaning or interpretation freedom that the original version has.. Italian often requires the translator to decide what the writer is trying to communicate because sentences need to be rewrite upside down or simply do not have a direct mapping.

Yes, indeed!

English is “shorter” than Italian: we always need more and longer words to express a concept, so we are somehow "restricted". Furthermore, Italian is read as it's written, so all the riddles, linguistic tricks or double meanings can't be translate.

You can put two nouns together and create a word, when in Spanish you need the two nouns separately and a preposition. Example: "Richard Lionheart = Ricardo Corazón de León" so "Lady Stoneheart" = "Lady Corazón de Piedra" and "Lord Bloodraven" = "Lord Cuervo de Sangre". It sounds better with a single word like in English, but I can't think of any other way.

Italian has the same "problem".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To the best of my knowledge, no one's tried to do it in Chinese yet (which I speak fluently). This might be for the best. Chinese is tricky, and a lot of the symbolism (*cough DRAGONS cough*) just doesn't work the same across cutlures. Also, the names would be just hideous. 'Stannis Baratheon' in Chinese looks like this 寺塔尼斯*吧拉喜昂, is pronounced, Sitannisi Balaxi'ang and means (each character has meaning) 'Temple tower nun thing*(interjection) pull happy raise'.

Oh, there are, all five of them. I saw them being sold side by side with the English ones when I was in Taiwan last year.

Not claiming that I am the best at reading Chinese here but I did take many years of Chinese school.

Flipped thru a few pages, place names are translated based on meaning, like Winterfell, White Harbor, but people's names are phonetic. I found it confusing as hell. Reading from a random page, I thought Greyjoy was Greatjon because they sounded similar. Then I realized that they translated the adjectives of "great" and "small" for the Umbers from the index. But you won't get that the Hightowers are literally of Hightower.

Btw, Wiki homepage has links to ASOIAF wikis in multiple languages, for those who are curious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I read all previous posts!


I also read the “debate” about character's name translation: I agree that some names need a translation because of their double meaning, but it's not so easy...


In Italian it would be ridiculous to translate Jon Snow in Jon Neve, because in our mentality translated surnames sound very very provincial and narrow-minded. Jon Neve is funny, Jon Snow is epic... I hope you understand.


So, I appreciate translator's choice to keep original names and surnames and translate them when it's necessary. For Example, Melisandre's prophecy about Jon is absolutely clear, because the translator explained the meaning of Snow (with capital S :P) to the readers who didn't know it, but he also used original name, escaping the ridiculous.



All bastard names are not translated, but is told that everyone of them has a meaning which is somehow connected to their birthplace.



On the other hand, cities' names are translated and they're good enough.


Winterfell is Grande Inverno (Great Winter)... I don't like it very much but isn't so bad. Casterly Rock is Castel Granito (Rock/Granite Castle) and I think it works, because it's a “solid” name, that communicate strength and stability, but granite is also something austere, grave, grim... It fits well with the Lannisters.


Riverrun is Delta delle Acque (that is something like Waters Delta...) and I think it's horrible, I prefer the original one.


Highgarden (Alto Giardino), Dreadfort (Forte Terrore), King's Landing (Approdo del Re), Dragonstone (Roccia del Drago), the Twins (le Torri Gemelle) are literally translated and they're good, except maybe le Torri Gemelle (The Twin Towers) for the Twins, because it reminds World Trade Center too closely.



Nicknames are translated too. The Hound is Il Mastino, that is a purebred dog (mastiff), but in Italian that word is also used in a figurative way, to indicate an aggressive man.


On the other hand, Reek remained Reek. And this is good, because it is difficult to put all that rhymes stuff in Italian because of the length of Italian words, the sound and other problems. Reek in Italian means something like Puzzolente, Fetente... that has a harsh sound, but above all not always words like freak (folle, pazzo or even scherzo della natura), sneak (furtivo), wreak (it's difficult to translate... it could be something like il sottomesso, colui che subisce...), weak (debole), leek (porro), bleak (cupo, tetro), meek (mite, docile, mansueto, sottomesso, remissivo), squeak (squittio) fit and rhyme well with it in translation. As you see, they are very different kind of words and their sound is totally different.




English is “shorter” than Italian: we always need more and longer words to express a concept




A good example to understand what I mean is Kingslayer. In Italian you cannot express the same concept in one word, so it was translated as Sterminatore di Re.




Then there are wonderful suffixes in English like "-born" which don't have a translation in Spanish. "Daenerys Stormborn" is one of my favourite nicknames in ASOIAF, but in Spanish it ended up like "Daenerys de la Tormenta", which doesn't sound half as well because it misses the sense of "born of something". Then again, the only other possibility I can think about is "Hija de la Tormenta" (daughter of the storm), but that is too long to the way it is used almost as part of her name when she is introduced.




Nata dalla Tempesta is the literal translation of Stormborn and it's good, because its sound is very medieval, epic, poetic, evocative. There are a lot of nicknames that, translated in our language, sound medieval because Italian medieval leader and lords had similar names (Lorenzo De Medici detto il Magnifico and so on).



So, Italian translation ain't so bad, but English is better.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would be interested to hear from other non-native English speakers if you have read ASOIAF in your native language and what did you think of the translation? I know many people don’t like the names that (I guess) are often translated quite literally, and I’ve seen someone complaining of actual blunders as well. In AGOT, instead of a stag killing the direwolf, it was translated as a unicorn (was it in Italy?).

I’m interested, since so far I’ve only read the books in English, and had my own encounter with the Finnish translation some time ago and it left me quite baffled. Here’s my take on the Finnish situation!

I have a background in translation studies, though I’ve never actually worked as a full time translator. My master’s thesis is still in the making, since I couldn’t refuse a very nice job I was offered when I was finishing my studies. After a seven year hiatus, I’m now considering if I could actually use ASOIAF as the material for my thesis.

So, one day I took the Finnish translation of ASOS home from my local library, hoping to give it a go. I read a few pages, started leafing through the book, but after a while I had to stop. As a fellow translator who can appreciate the fact that translating GRRM might not have been the easiest job in the world I’m loathe to say I found the Finnish translation mindblowingly substandard.

I don't know how to say this nicely, but the translation was... well, let me just say it didn't do justice to GRRM's writing. Or maybe it did, and that's the problem. At uni, we were taught that a good translation is one that no-one notices - it needs to come off as if it was originally written in Finnish. But with the Finnish translation of ASOS, the language was unnatural, something that would be called translatese, or in our case, Finglish = too much of a literal (word-for-word) translation. And since Finnish and English are totally different, it’s bad, I mean real baaaaad.

It’s most obvious in the way the sentences are structured; they mirror their English counterparts, and that makes them sound ridiculous in Finnish - sometimes because they come off as infantile, sometimes because they are overcomplicated and Finnish would have another perfectly fluent way to express the same thing (usually with less words). One particularly annoying thing that caught my eye was the use of genitive forms of personal pronouns. We don’t use them all that often, since Finnish is an agglutinative language where suffixes are added to the nouns to do the trick. So when you see sentences where all the words like “my” or “your” are literally translated, it’s just redundant and silly.

I was surprised to find out that the publishing company was founded by the same person who translates the ASOIAF books. According to an interview, she got so excited about ASOIAF that she started translating AGOT and offered it to publishing companies. They declined, so she started her own publishing company and brought ASOIAF to the Finnish markets. Finding work as a translator can be hard, and I can appreciate her initiative for setting up a company and making ASOIAF available for Finns, but truly, there might have been a good reason behind the existing companies turning down her translation...

I was also horrified to see that Finns are still waiting to get their hands on ADWD, it's only expected to be out next year (the first half of the book). All in all, I think it's a shame - some more distinguished publisher with an experienced translator could have done GRRM’s work more justice.

TL:DR So, how is it with other languages? Are you happy with the translations? If you are, what makes them good? If you're not, what’s wrong with them?

ETA: formatting

Heh. I'm not the only Finnish person here, it seems (Okay, there's so many people here it would be a miracle if I were). I originally read the first four books in Finnish and the 5th one in English as there's no translation for it. On my re-read I read the whole series in English.

I rarely notice any major differences in translations but one big mistake I remember is from the AGOT prologue. When Ser Waymar Royce's sword explodes he gets a shard in his eye and the description goes something like this: "He lifted his hands to his eyes and there was blood leaking from between his fingers". It's then later mentioned how he had a piece of metal jutting from his eye. In the Finnish translation it says that "He lifted his hands to his EARS and there was blood leaking from between his fingers", even though the piece of metal is later said to be in his eye. Even on my first read I was a bit like "What? His sword explodes and then his ears start bleeding?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whow, now i really feel linguistically challenged....


I wish I had bought the GOT graphic novels I saw in France last year i could probably get through them with the help of a dictionary and my English paperbacks, my French was good once, but is rusty as hell these days. I tried reading some David Eddings in French once, but struggled because although "mon chou" is a perfectly reasonable term of endearment in France, it translates into "my cabbage" in English.


Somebody asked about english translations of foreign novels into English...


I've had no problem at all reading the English translations of Steig Larsson's novels



In the same vein, some non-native English speakers may not pick up on the somewhat "oldy englishy" tone evoked by the syntax, the use of spelling to depict british-y accents in dialogue, and similar tricks. Overdone, this can be a horrid fairy-tale like cliché, and really annoying. I think GRRM really does a great job to evoke a kind of vaguely archaic british speech without overdoing it. To my taste, it's pretty subtle. I'm wondering what our Brit friends think? I notice a lot of the forum's posters are brits, so I'm guessing asoiaf is pretty popular in the UK, so I'm guessing this aspect of GRRM's writing isn't off-putting to brits.


Somebody wanted to know what native Brits made of all the archaic words and medieval-speak. It's easy, i grew up reading historical fiction and can't quite remember a time when i didn't know that garrons, palfreys and destriers were types of horse. I'm actually really pleased with the use of language as a whole, it's just enough to give the book a "historical" flavour but not too much to overpower it and make the whole thing look stiff or silly.


There are a couple of things that bug me:


  • "sit a horse" is fine, i've read the phrase before, but i've never heard it applied to anything other than a horse or maybe a bed, i've certainly never heard anybody "sit a throne" or "sit the throne". I'm not even very sure it's not "sit ahorse" or "sit abed".
  • I do find the lack of "u" in White Harbor and armour a bit odd when writing or typing it out, but I am glad that GRRM uses "Autumn" rather than "Fall".
  • I wasn't sure if Jeyne was pronounced "Jane" or "Jean" until Reek starts doing this rhyming couplets, although how he gets Reek to rhyme with wreak is beyond me, he's not a very good poet.



Jaime is pronounced like Jamie in my head, and was long before the TV series came on air.



Oh and Spanish sounds really awesome, I wish I had time to learn it. :-)


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been trying to decipher Dany's prophecy at the House of the Undying by comparing the translation with the original. As expected, the translation implied some things that the original did not, but I don't know if I should take it seriously.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been trying to decipher Dany's prophecy at the House of the Undying by comparing the translation with the original. As expected, the translation implied some things that the original did not, but I don't know if I should take it seriously.

What is your mother language? :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Hungarian translation (while it is generally good, with nice ideas in it, and some problems were resolved in the translation of DwD with better versions) the main problem is that it is not consequent.


For example the House name Hornwood was translated in the first book, but not in the second; it took a while for me to realize that Lady Hornwood is the widow of Szarvaserdő Ura :-)


Arys Oakheart's surname was translated from the beginning with a word which means "Ironheart" - not just a bad solution in itself, but it became even worse with the fourth book, when the translator could not solve normally the problem with the chapter title "The seeded knight" :-P Yes, the translator had no chance to foresee that Arys will be so important later, but still, he could only blame himself for this stupid Ironheart-idea of his. The connection between the name and the Oakheart sigil also became lost this way.


Sometimes the translator forgot that certain surnames are bastard names; the bastard names were basically translated to Hungarian, but sometimes it was forgotten, so for a while I thought that there is a House Flowers somewhere.


On the other hand, the poems mostly sound cool in the Hungarian version (perhaps the Rains of Castamere could have been better, but I have to admit, it is not an easy task to translate it).


Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Hungarian translation (while it is generally good, with nice ideas in it, and some problems were resolved in the translation of DwD with better versions) the main problem is that it is not consequent.

For example the House name Hornwood was translated in the first book, but not in the second; it took a while for me to realize that Lady Hornwood is the widow of Szarvaserdő Ura :-)

Arys Oakheart's surname was translated from the beginning with a word which means "Ironheart" - not just a bad solution in itself, but it became even worse with the fourth book, when the translator could not solve normally the problem with the chapter title "The seeded knight" :-P Yes, the translator had no chance to foresee that Arys will be so important later, but still, he could only blame himself for this stupid Ironheart-idea of his. The connection between the name and the Oakheart sigil also became lost this way.

Sometimes the translator forgot that certain surnames are bastard names; the bastard names were basically translated to Hungarian, but sometimes it was forgotten, so for a while I thought that there is a House Flowers somewhere.

On the other hand, the poems mostly sound cool in the Hungarian version (perhaps the Rains of Castamere could have been better, but I have to admit, it is not an easy task to translate it).

Wait, what? :huh: Why would they translate it like that?

And what does that have to do with his name?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Full disclosure:


My mother tongue is German, I have read ASOIAF only in English. I know the German translation only through leafing through the books at the store and discussing them with a friend who has only read them in German.


I tried to get my hands on the Dunk&Egg stories for some time until I just found all three of them in one volume in German in a store. I had no idea they had even been translated. So those I have only read in German.



My general impression is that the translation is very well crafted. But I also feel it shifts the story towards “higher fantasy”. The conversations appear more formal. I guess the underlying problem is that “you” has two translations in contemporary German: the informal “Du” (works quite well e.g. when Dunk adresses Egg) and the more formal “Sie”. “Sie” simply does not work, it is a too modern term and has therefore been replaced by the older “Ihr”. The use of “Ihr” somehow puts it in a more romantic, less gritty literary tradition. Things that come to mind are the Karl May Wild West novels from the late 19th century (let's just say these had a lighter tone about them), maybe even German Shakespeare translations (OK, Shakespeare IS gritty. Anyway, imagine formal conversations taking places with lots of “thee” and “thou”. While this might somehow work for Small Council meetings, the talk between Catelyn and Jaime in the Riverrun dungeon would not be quite the same).



You could say ASOIAF sounds a little more like The Lord of the Rings in German. I feel the translation leans a little towards the German standard fantasy vocabulary that was probably established back when LOTR was first translated into German. For LOTR this worked incredibly well (I love the old translation by Margret Carroux, I later found the original never worked that well for me, same for the Silmarillion), but for ASOIAF it changes the tone, and something is lost.



To be clear, I don't think I could have done better myself.



A lot has already been said about the German names. It is irritating that it’s done so literally, but I found I got used to it after a while. But that is certainly another thing that takes away the grit. I could imagine that is has more of an effect in the darker ASOIAF than in D&E.



Some details:



I had tried to find a translation for “The Reach” before reading D&E and just couldn`t. But “Die Weite” is great (“weit” means “far”).



“Butterbumps” is “Butterstampf” (“Butter stampfen” = “to churn butter”, but "stampfen" actually means "to stomp" or "to thump", so it implies something both soft and heavy. It’s reasonably funny.) Said friend assures me the chapter in which Sansa talks to Olenna and Margaery is equally hilarious in German. He also loved the translation of “The Bear and the Maiden fair”. BTW, I never really understood the meaning of “Butterbumps”, if someone could fill me in I’d appreciate that. Does it allude to something or is it just something random like “Moon Boy”?



“Casterlystein” is awful.



Was it really necessary to call the second half of AGOT “Das Erbe von Winterfell” (“The legacy of Winterfell”)? That is even worse a spoiler than “The Return of the King”. My friend was somewhat unsurprised when Ned lost his head.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...