> The initial draft was terrible in conveying tone, irony, or any kind of cultural allusion.
My mother reads books mostly in Russian, including books by English-speaking authors translated into Russian.
Some of the translations are laughably bad; one recent example had to translate "hot MILF", and just translated "hot" verbatim - as in the adjective indicating temperature - and just transliterated the word "MILF", as the translator (or machine?) apparently just had no idea what it was, and didn't know the equivalent term in Russian.
As a mirror, I have a hard time reading things in Russian - I left when I was ten years old, so I'm very out of practice, and most of the cultural allusions go straight over my head as well. A good translation needs to make those things clear, either via a good translation, or by footnotes that explain things to the reader.
And this doesn't just apply to linguistic translation - the past is a foreign country, too. Reading old texts - any old texts - requires context.
My mother reads books mostly in Russian, including books by English-speaking authors translated into Russian.
Some of the translations are laughably bad; one recent example had to translate "hot MILF", and just translated "hot" verbatim - as in the adjective indicating temperature - and just transliterated the word "MILF", as the translator (or machine?) apparently just had no idea what it was, and didn't know the equivalent term in Russian.
As a mirror, I have a hard time reading things in Russian - I left when I was ten years old, so I'm very out of practice, and most of the cultural allusions go straight over my head as well. A good translation needs to make those things clear, either via a good translation, or by footnotes that explain things to the reader.
And this doesn't just apply to linguistic translation - the past is a foreign country, too. Reading old texts - any old texts - requires context.