Your assessments - how well does ASOIAF translate?

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Hmm interesting

I speak french but haven't read the book in french before but I a friend of mine that reads in french has said some strange things I have never seen in the book before.

[Rysler]

I'm Finnish and I read the first four books in Finnish. I find it confusing that they translate some names and castles etc, but not all of them. For example, Yronwood = Rautapuu (lit. Irontree) and Dreadfort = Kauhiala (...something like "Terriblia". It's not a real word.), yet Hornwood and Redfort remain merrily untranslated.

Also, I am of the night turned into I prefer the night. I was weirdly disappointed.

[David Selig]

I just had the chance to read the Dunk and Egg stories in Bulgarian. Well, more like skim over them. I am quite surprised. Bittersteel's name got translated but Bloodraven's wasn't? Ser Kyle is a Bulgarian cat but Meynard is an English plum? I cannot see the logic. Again, there were some mechanical mistakes but we all make those.

The translator is the same one who worked on the main series. I think he was the one who translated the anthology The Hedge Knight was part of about 15 years ago but I am not sure.

I am almost 100% sure It wasn't him.

[StarkSailorman]

Is this a tricky-technical question ?

[Brienne The Wolf]

I'm from Brazil. I bought all ASOIAF books in English, because of the price, but I'm with my friend's Portuguese copy of aGoT so let me check -

...

The translation is very good, unlike Harry Potter's. Thanks old gods that they didn't translate the name of Winterfell, and the names and second names of the characters, like in LOTR's translation. The only name that had a funny translation was Highgarden, that here is Jardim de Cima, "Upper Garden" in a literal translation.

[Iona]

I'm Finnish and I read the first four books in Finnish. I find it confusing that they translate some names and castles etc, but not all of them. For example, Yronwood = Rautapuu (lit. Irontree) and Dreadfort = Kauhiala (...something like "Terriblia". It's not a real word.), yet Hornwood and Redfort remain merrily untranslated.

Also, I am of the night turned into I prefer the night. I was weirdly disappointed.

Oh gosh, "Kauhiala" sounds awfully childish, the feeling of dread is really lost in that translation...

[Buckwheat]

Also, I am of the night turned into I prefer the night. I was weirdly disappointed.

It became I belong to the night here, if I recall correctly, which is the nearest it can get. The formulation "of the night" cannot be translated into Slovene.

[Annara Snow]

It became I belong to the night here, if I recall correctly, which is the nearest it can get. The formulation "of the night" cannot be translated into Slovene.

Well, it's not like "I am of the night" makes a lot of sense in the first place...

[Buckwheat]

Well, it's not like "I am of the night" makes a lot of sense in the first place...

Well ... true. :lol:

If I hear that formulation, I would think that he is a bat or something.

[Ser Arys Redshirt]

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'.

[Disputatious]

The most difficult thing in translation is the difference in basic cultures. In any (good) book there's always allusions to commonly known movies, fairy tales, children books, typical characters, historical persons etc.etc., which is a platform for unspoken things like humor. It's very difficult to make these subtle ideas understandable to any reader unfamiliar with the basics of this particular culture.

However there're also things like technical errors. I remember some time ago Harry Potter books were translated so that the translations of the same name were different in the books, and even in the parts of a same book (the result of a team translation).

That's why I prefer reading English books in English. Trying to learn German too, so if someone can suggest me good German-language writers I'd be appreciated.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Avoid Faust at the start. Try some of the shorter poems, and "Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre". Consider also the songs of Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf. Some of the Schumann songs use poems of Heinrich Heine, which are also simple in their language (well somewhat so) but very expressive. Wolf sets poems by Edward Mörike and Eichendorf as does Schumann. Perhaps one should start with the Goethe and Heine's "Buch der Lieder".

[Mr Fixit]

How did he translate "Jeyne, Jeyne, rhymes with pain"?

Now that's a good question. I don't even remember this one. Does anyone know in which Theon chapter that line appears?

[KOM]

This is one of my favorite side-topics in ASOIAF.

1) Are there good translation resources out there, or cross-listings of the various characters, places & terms in the different languages?

2) From what I hear, translations of place names, e.g., Invernalia=Winterfell in Spanish, can make the series sound like a generic European fairytale, rather than a story rooted in a vaguely English-like place, with compound naming like "holdfast" helping to give a sense of location. But I'm not sure how well that would carry over in other languages.

[King Brandon Ice Eyes]

Oh, how could I forget? In Portuguese the line "Jeyne, Jeyne, rhymes with pain" is translated to "Jeyne, Jeyne, rima com reine". "Reine" is the verb "reinar" which means "to reign" in subjunctive or imperative mood. It just couldn't be more unfit to describe Jeyne's situation but I can't think of any word in Portuguese that rhymes with "Jeyne" that would make sense in the context.

[Dante's Girl]

This is my first post, but I was prompted to add to this by my admiration for the linguistic skills of readers for whom English is not their native tongue. It puts Americans to shame, for our arrogance in assuming that studying other languages isn't important, and the not-unrelated weakness in teaching languages in our schools. It's clear that is board attracts a highly literate international audience!

[lojzelote]

Riverrun is Řekotočí, River-turning - dunno why and I thoroughly hate it. I do admit that the two-root names are a translator's nightmare here and keeping both elements is next to impossible but what the translator produced is very mechanic and unnatural. I think she should have dropped one element and look at the gist of the meaning rather than the word. She could even have looked at the existing names, e.g. Bystřice - not sure if I'm getting the etymology right but it seems to contain the same element as bystrý, quick, which is used with either mind or running water.

Which is the case here :-(

I've always thought that the "-točí" was derived from "tok"/"téct" instead of "točit". Which if nothing else would make the translation faithful if we assume that "run(ning)" = "tekoucí".

I'm no translator, but personally I would call it "Řekoříčí" – it’s two ř for the two r, and it creates the mental image of a land with many intersecting rivers (at least for me it does).

[Ygrain]

I've always thought that the "-točí" was derived from "tok"/"téct" instead of "točit". Which if nothing else would make the translation faithful if we assume that "run(ning)" = "tekoucí".

I'm no translator, but personally I would call it "Řekoříčí" – it’s two ř for the two r, and it creates the mental image of a land with many intersecting rivers (at least for me it does).

Funny how I never grasped the "tok" (stream) connection - which, I assume, means that it doesn't quite work, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure about the doubled ř as it's problematic pronunciation-wise, and I'd avoid using the same root in general. Besides, anything starting with "řeko-" will sound weird as it is not a productive word derivation type.

[Buckwheat]

Fixit, the "Jeyne, rhymes with pain" is in the chapter where Jeyne marries Ramsay, titled The Prince of Winterfell. There is practically impossible to find something that ends with -ejn in south Slavic languages, I would think ... *checks Slovene version*

Jeyne, ime ji je Jeyne, rima se z obup brezmejen.

"Brezmejen" is an adjective, meaning ... ummm, endless, something like that. Jeyne rhymes with "hopelessness endless".

It is not a perfect rhyme, as -ejen has one sound between j and n, and well, Jeyne is just -ejn, but it is as near as it can come.

I remember that I wondered how that would get translated after reading the English version, I actually expected that the translator would try to find something that rhymes with Poole rather than Jeyne, that would probably have been easier, but I cannot think of a word that would fit there either.

This is my first post, but I was prompted to add to this by my admiration for the linguistic skills of readers for whom English is not their native tongue. It puts Americans to shame, for our arrogance in assuming that studying other languages isn't important, and the not-unrelated weakness in teaching languages in our schools. It's clear that is board attracts a highly literate international audience!

Welcome to the forum, and yes, you got the right impression of it, this forum is very international. ;)

[C0bR]

Funny how I never grasped the "tok" (stream) connection - which, I assume, means that it doesn't quite work, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure about the doubled ř as it's problematic pronunciation-wise, and I'd avoid using the same root in general. Besides, anything starting with "řeko-" will sound weird as it is not a productive word derivation type.

"Točí" for "tok" seemed pretty straightforward to me. We would need a bigger sample size than 3 people to determine the quality of the translation of this one though. I like it. Never had many problems with the translations of the place names (unlike those damn surnames...)

Řekoříčí is just weird. Double Ř and both parts of the word basically mean the same thing.

[Mr Fixit]

Fixit, the "Jeyne, rhymes with pain" is in the chapter where Jeyne marries Ramsay, titled The Prince of Winterfell. There is practically impossible to find something that ends with -ejn in south Slavic languages, I would think ... *checks Slovene version*

"Brezmejen" is an adjective, meaning ... ummm, endless, something like that. Jeyne rhymes with "hopelessness endless".

I found it. The translator used the same alliteration he used with Reek, even staying with letter S, although Jeyne obviously doesn't start with the same letter.

Džejn. Sirota stradala Džejn.

Jeyne. Poor hurt Jeyne.

Somewhat less effective then the Reek version because alliteration here only includes the first two words. On the other hand, I don't think it's a bad solution; it parallels Reek's own plight nicely as Theon chooses essentially the same words to describe both Jeyne and himself.