Read on Twitter
not to get into Translation Discourse on this account as well but:
I think, a lot of the takes I see going around recently doesn't exactly account for context and the kind of language being used in a translation?
I think, a lot of the takes I see going around recently doesn't exactly account for context and the kind of language being used in a translation?
consider the extremely different contexts of, say, a xianxia novel vs a manga about high school
while xianxia would definitely require footnotes to explain cultural things that just do not exist in eng, there's very little about modern high school that can't be conveyed in eng
while xianxia would definitely require footnotes to explain cultural things that just do not exist in eng, there's very little about modern high school that can't be conveyed in eng
and then there's works set outside the source language's culture - yes, having a character call another gege to flirt may be a thing in chinese, but if the context of the work is a generic high fantasy setting, then it's not really necessary to leave it in as is
basically this was a lot of words to say that bc people insist on some dumb standard of "purity" in their translations, we get stupid shit like untranslated honorifics left in when it would really have been fine to just rewrite around them in modern stories
like, there is nothing such as a "completely 100% accurate" translation. the very act of translating something changes it, bc languages are not a perfect 1:1 match
the role of a translator should not be to translate the text literally and then leave footnotes all over the place that you have to read to understand the context
it's to convey the meaning of the work even if that means rewriting out small language nuances
it's to convey the meaning of the work even if that means rewriting out small language nuances
ok im done sorry for word spam
