Knowing the Language

In His WritingArdian Vehbiou, from a harassment of me in a social media, mentions translation, or re-creating, of Chinese poetry by American poet Ezra Pound, even though he did not know Chinese. For this, Pound was based on the notes of an American Orientalist, who himself did not own Chinese but was helped by his Japanese teachers. Within me, this troubled a concern involving how we view the translation.

The truth is, despite its great importance, translation, such as the process, suffers from an unfair underestimation. This makes translation-related notions wrong from time to time. Word falls, I hear people using the word <x0-reform” to describe the translation process. The re - creation would not be proper synonym for translation. If we necessarily want to find a synonym or comparison, except for the word “exequent”, we can very well use the word “created”. Edith Grossman, an American translator, says in the book “Why Translation Matters”:

I believe that perfectly professional exchangers, offer in private, think of their needs.

After all, even the writing process, or the creation of a text, is a translation: adaptation of thoughts in written text.

But let me return to my primary concern from which Ardian Vehbiu is promoted. How (sufficient) the translator must know from the language and culture of the original text to be able to offer us a good translation. Beyond the problems that come up with the definitions of certain concepts or words here, concern remains.

I disagree on two things with Vehbiun: First, poetry is not the best example to discuss translation problems outside professional circles. Second, bringing in the attention of what Pound has done with the revival of the Western world's interest in art and Chinese philosophy I fear it creates in our discretion wrong ideas about readers. I'm afraid you're going to have to be a master of the word in your language and you can translate “without knowing the language of text that you're trying to translate.

In his book “Council, a new translator”, Edmond Tupja offers us a list of conditions you must meet to be truly translators: 1. To know your mother tongue very well, in which you seek to translate; 2 Peter 3: 1. To know it well, if not very well, the foreign language from which you seek to translate; [here] it is preferable that you have studied it deeply or at least exercised it well with your mouth and in writing for several years in the place where it is spoken and written; [...] 5. [...] to know the history, culture, social and artistic life of that people from whose language and language you will translate.

So having enough knowledge means mastering their respective languages, having knowledge of their respective cultures, and being too exposed to them.

After all, everything leads to one of the basic rules of translation. If there is something wrong with the translation text, the problem will not be looked for in the original but in the translation process. Errors are also passed, but failure to meet the necessary preconditions to enter the important and noble translation company increases the possibility of mistaking.

Taken from Paige. com