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Het boek Vertalen wat er staat van Arthur Langeveld verscheen voor het eerst in 1986 en is nu opnieuw uitgegeven. In het boek worden vertaalvragen beantwoord aan de hand van bestaande literaire vertalingen. Voor beginnende vertalers en voor iedereen die met vreemde talen en vertalingen te maken heeft.
Vertalen is een vak, een moeilijk vak, en slechts een gering aantal natuurtalenten beheerst dit van meet af aan, de meeste andere mensen echter moeten er een opleiding in krijgen, want het is een vak dat – mits enige aanleg aanwezig is – zeker geleerd kan worden. Dit pleidooi voor een professionalisering van het vertalen zal iedereen kunnen onderschrijven die bijvoorbeeld wel eens geworsteld heeft met een volstrekt onbegrijpelijke, want door een Japanner uit het Japans vertaalde, handleiding voor een elektrisch apparaat.
From the Bulgarian version of Music Idol:
The novel Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
tells the story of a young man who goes to the Ukraine in search of the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is aided in his quest by a blind old man, a randy guide dog and a very, very bad translator.
Some of the chapters are written by the “very, very bad translator”, which sometimes leads to hilarious dialogues (the “I” in this dialogue is the translator):
“Your train ride appeased you?” I asked. “Oh, God,” he said, “twenty-six hours, fucking unbelievable.” This girl Unbelievable must be very majestic, I thought. “You were able to Z Z Z Z Z?” I asked. “What?” “Did you manufacture any Z’s?” “I don’t understand.” “Repose.” “What?” “Did you repose?” “Oh. No,” he said, “didn’t repose at all.” “What?” “I…did…not…repose…at…all.”
Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament.
Milan Kundera
Many critics, no defenders,
translators have but two regrets:
when we hit, no one remembers,
when we miss, no one forgets.
Anonymous
Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.
J. W. Goethe
Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
Anthony Burgess
Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.
Friedrich Schleiermacher
Translation quality assessment proceeds according to the lordly, completely unexplained, whimsy of “It doesn’t sound right”.
Peter Fawcett
Translators live off the differences between languages, all the while working toward eliminating them.
Edmond Cary
In his book Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation, Douglas Robinson discusses both the theoretical and practical aspects of becoming a translator. It is aimed specifically at novice translators and discusses subjects such as:
- How to translate faster and more accurately
- How to deal with arising problems and stress
- How the market works
The book includes a wide variety of lively activities and exercises to facilitate the learning of both theory and practice plus a detailed Teachers Guide with suggestions for discussion and activities and hints for the teaching of translation.
…translating from one language into another… is like gazing at a Flemish tapestry with the wrong side out: even though the figures are visible, they are full of threads that obscure the view and are not bright and smooth as when seen from the other side.
Miguel de Cervantes in The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha
A good translation does not just convey the same meaning, but it gets the music of the words right.
Orhan Pamuk
Beautiful translations are like beautiful women, that is to say, they are not always the most faithful ones.
George Steiner in After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation
Creating a website is one thing. Getting it listed in search engines and getting a high ranking is quite a different thing. There are many ways to do this, for example by optimizing the design, the code and the content. Here are a few tips specifically aimed at optimizing the content on your website.
How does a search engine work?
A search engine collects internet content by “crawling” (browsing) websites using a so-called spider. The content found is saved in the search engine’s database and ordered by relevance. An internet user looking for content using the search engine is actually searching this database.
In Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour anthropologist Kate Fox describes how she has observed the English to find out what exactly are the defining characteristics of Englishness. She talks about the rules of conversation in different situations and the rules of behaviour, for example at home, at work and in the pub. In her own words:
I don’t see why anthropologists feel they have to travel to remote corners of the world and get dysentery and malaria in order to study strange tribal cultures with bizarre beliefs and mysterious customs, when the weirdest, most puzzling tribe of all is right here on our doorstep.
It’s a very interesting and amusing book which will give you some insight in the English and English society.
