ศาลาชุมนุม

[montyb]

Hi all,
When it has something to do with theoretic stuff like this, it’s a lot easy for me to start from something someone already wrote. Here let me start from what Toffeeman wrote. Only that I will talk about English into Thai.

Toffeeman wrote: 1st I try to do a word for word translation. Working out what all the words means and keeping the same structure and word order as the Thai.

-From my experience of editing the works (English into Thai -books) of more than 300 translators (some are professional, some not), I found that the main problem was here. As Tgeezer pointed out above that “not all English speakers understand English in the same way.” That is very true. So a translator has to “guess” about the style of the writer of each piece. This problem will be solved by itself when that translator read/translate all of the piece because he can guess it from “the context” that each word is used. And when its story is unfolded.
However, what I found most was the way translators “choose” the wrong words in Thai. And it is called “สำนวนนมเนย.” It means a translator cannot use Thai words good enough because he still sticks/clings to the English word.

Toffeeman wrote: 2nd I rearrange the sentence for it to make sense in Eng but still probably not as would say it. This would be called a literal translation

-Sometimes, a translator has to rearrange the sentence for it to make sense in Thai. Mostly the back of the sentence to the forth. But a good translator can handle this well. He still keep the style of the writer. The sequence of words that appear will affect the reader who reads it. This’s very important in literature/novel translation. In that case, “literal translation” is tasted badly for the readers.

Toffeeman wrote: 3rd I try to do a free translation. Taking the meaning and substance of the sentence and writing it as we would say it in Eng. This will mean changing some words and inserting some words or maybe an idiom.

-I agree with him all. And this is called “art.” The easy example is every Thai students in the university know equally Thai but only a few who can write short story. Not to mention a novel. So it’s not about language knowledge but something more…art.
What always annoyed me for doing this job for almost 25 years now is most translators didn’t “respect” the text of the writer. They rewrote (translated) it as if it was their own writing. Worse than that was they were proud doing that with their motto “translation is like a woman, if she is faithful, she is not beautiful.” So they only tried to make her beautiful without respect the writer at all.
I also found a few professional translators (most of them are my close friends) who are very good at this. I mean they can “respect” the writer and translated it beautifully.

[David and Bui]

What always annoyed me for doing this job for almost 25 years now is most translators didn’t “respect” the text of the writer. They rewrote (translated) it as if it was their own writing. Worse than that was they were proud doing that with their motto “translation is like a woman, if she is faithful, she is not beautiful.” So they only tried to make her beautiful without respect the writer at all.
I also found a few professional translators (most of them are my close friends) who are very good at this. I mean they can “respect” the writer and translated it beautifully.

Thank you, Monty, for that very thoughtful reply. I very much respect the wisdom you have collected after 25 years of translation experience.

Please let me ask you a question or two. When you translate a novel or movie from English to Thai, is your primary focus to reflect the cultural nuances of the original text or it is to translate the text in a way that allows your reader to better understand the cultural environment of the original? For example, when you come to an English idiom or metaphor which does not carry a clear meaning to the reader or viewer in Thai if rendered literally, do you try to find a similar idiom or metaphor in Thai? If you do the latter, do you consider this practice a lack of respect for the writer of the original source text?

Please help us understand what it means "to respect the text of the writer".

I want to thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us.

[montyb]

Hi David,

And now, you literally pulled my leg

David wrote: When you translate a novel or movie from English to Thai, is your primary focus to reflect the cultural nuances of the original text or it is to translate the text in a way that allows your reader to better understand the cultural environment of the original?

- It’s hard to say exactly. I will try to do the latter the least (except in the footnotes.) This is because the readers “know” that it’s English novel. If I try to do anything too much, it will look like I look down on my readers. However, this doesn’t mean keeping “สำนวนนมเนย.” For example, “Mam is expecting for her phonce call.” – “แหม่ม (กำลัง) รอโทรศัพท์อยู่.” My readers already know about “mam.” There’s no need for me to translate it as “คุณผู้หญิง” except in another context which is required the polite word. Here, the cultural nuances are not hard to understand. You can find this kind of keeping a lot of the cultural nuances in Chinese movie/novel (version Thai.)
What I want to point out is most English to Thai translators who are good at English always translate it as “แหม่มกำลังคาดหวังโทรศัพท์อยู่.” At the first read, it seems okay. However this is both “สำนวนนมเนย” and missing the boarder sense of the word. “Expect” doesn’t mean only “look forward to/wish for” but also “waiting for.” And it’s more different in Thai between “คาดหวัง” and “รอ”

David wrote: For example, when you come to an English idiom or metaphor which does not carry a clear meaning to the reader or viewer in Thai if rendered literally, do you try to find a similar idiom or metaphor in Thai?

- Sure. I have to งมเข็มในมหาสมุทร not in the haystack. But if there’s no such idiom or metaphor in Thai, I have to find to the similar words that have the close meaning. Sometimes it’s very hard to find just one word/sentence. And this will determine how good a translator you are. The effort to put into just one word.

David wrote: Please help us understand what it means "to respect the text of the writer."

-This needs a very long reply. The short version here is try as best as you could before change/rewrite the original text of the writer. If the writer wrote” Hell, to go.” A translator should not just translated it as “ไปนรก.” The sequence of the words will make the different result. The translator is not a writer. The writer has his purpose to use any word in his unique way.

P.S. I wrote this at once. Sorry for any errors.

[David and Bui]

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Montyb.

[Rick Bradford]

Is That A Fish In Your Ear? - Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos