Pun Translation Lecture

in translation •  7 years ago 

One of the rewards on offer during my crowdfunding campaign was a lecture on translation donated by my best friend, and Israel's finest translator, Yael Achmon. This was taken by a group of lovely people, and I was fortunate enough that they were happy to have me there.

I love knowing that a thing I did to benefit me and my tiny publishing house caused an event like this, in which a great lecture was given to a rapt audience of super appreciative people.
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The topic Yael chose for the lecture was the translation of puns. This is both a sore spot and a delight for translators. It's some of the hardest stuff to get right, but also some of the most satisfying. As the Hebrew translator for all of Rick Riordan's work, Yael has had a LOT of experience translating puns.

She broke the process down in a way that even I - someone who's been translating for over 25 years - found useful.

First, you have to recognize the thing you're seeing IS a pun, that there's more to the statement being made than the very surface level. Then you have to break it down to its components, and then rebuild it using either a straight translation of those components or - when that doesn't work - components that are similar enough to work in the context of the book.

The translator's goal, as Yael mentioned in the lecture, is to give the reader an experience as close, in all possible ways, to the that of readers in the original language. And sometimes, that means you have to invent a pun just as terrible as the one in the original language.

This lecture was a delight, and I am so happy I played a part in making it happen.

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I always had lots of fun trying to translate puns from one language to another. Puns and jokes can be treacherous. You need to have a good understanding of the original language as well as the target language. In addition, you will need to have a good idea about what might be considered offensive or not in the culture of your audience.

Well, yeah. The language you're translating too has to be the one you have complete knowledge of. I mean, of course you have to know both, but you'll usually translate into the one you know best.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Very interesting post. I have a couple of friends that are linguists and translators. We rarely talk 'shop' but even I am aware of the possibility of a crucial mistake in Pun translation.

I'd have just never imagined a conference on the subject. Thank you for exposing me to an entirely new subject.

Hello mate this comment is out of the topic sorry
By mistake i Transfer 136.938 SBD to @fminerten i sent him memo but he doesn't reply please help me to contact him please these SBDs was All i have. 54 days from working hard to take it please help me i can't handle with this 😞

Also, there's a fairly decent chance you're messaging a bot.

And also also? Why are you spamming people with requests for money? Make your content. Get to know people. Comment relevant things to their content. Sending people 0.001 SBD just so you can spam them seems like an absolutely terrible idea. Even if it works out a couple of times, it is not sustainable. Concentrate on doing good work.

I literally have zero idea how to help you with this. Sorry.

But i notice that he is always upvoting your posts !! Am i wrong ?

I think he's using a voting trail? If you'll go a couple of days back, you'll see he wasn't voting for me for a while, and then came back. I'm just happy to get the upvotes, man.

Ok man thank you im upset and sad because it was all my 54 days hard work reward i can't handle it you are a plankton too and you know how it's hard to lost your reward just like this btw have a great day

  ·  7 years ago (edited)
  1. Yes, that account is a bot. It trails a few users (including myself) that curate a lot.
  2. You shouldn't spam in transfers. I hope you've learned from this very expensive lesson.
  1. Thank you for the info
  2. And what do you think about scam new steemians reward ? You are all blaming me and nobody blame him he think just about money is that not spam ? He upvote just for curations is that not spam ? We should not judge just the new steemians even the old one make mistakes my lady 😉

"He" is not a person. It's a bot account that does what it's meant to do.

As for scams - I have about as much tolerance for them as I do for wallet memo spam.