Genius translators who don't even work as full-time translators. Thread poster: Andrew Morris
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After leaving school, I went off to study French and German at Oxford, where the experience of translating was harder, but not substantially different from what I’d done in the senior years in school. Still both ways. And still no real guidance on the art of translation itself. Not knowing any of the guidelines that seem so obvious to all of us now, I’m sure my translations back then were pretty mediocre. Just as well I’ve lost my notes from those days…
Funnily enough there ... See more After leaving school, I went off to study French and German at Oxford, where the experience of translating was harder, but not substantially different from what I’d done in the senior years in school. Still both ways. And still no real guidance on the art of translation itself. Not knowing any of the guidelines that seem so obvious to all of us now, I’m sure my translations back then were pretty mediocre. Just as well I’ve lost my notes from those days…
Funnily enough there was one person studying alongside me who always used to produce what seemed impeccable translations back then. But when we reconnected much later in life and I sent him a trial (he wasn’t a professional, so this was just me trying to help a friend), what came back was pretty dire by our standards. So either my own perceptions had changed, or I really didn’t know what made a good translation back then. Or both.
Because 80% of the course was devoted to literature, language took a back seat in any case.
And yet it turned out that my two tutors, a certain Dr Krailsheimer and Dr Luke, were not only published translators but extremely gifted at it. Dr Krailsheimer translated Flaubert’s Salammbô into English for Penguin Classics, no less, while Dr Luke was the first person ever to translate Goethe’s Faust into free verse.
That’s a 100,000-word novel which in itself a work of world literature, if you please. What’s more, it reads beautifully, dammit. Suddenly makes 2,000 words on perfume or ball bearings by next Wednesday seem pretty trivial by comparison.
And it wasn’t even their main job.
Besides, they had no Internet of course. They probably had their handwritten scripts typed up at the local secretarial college.
Sometimes life seems a bit unfair...
Have you met any gifted translators who just do it as a hobby or to add a little extra income? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Not translator, but proofreader | Mar 10, 2020 |
My wife.
She is a natural when it comes to the Dutch language. Needless to say, I let her (proof)read my work (if she got the time). She is a journalist, so maybe that is why.
Thank you dear.
[Edited at 2020-03-10 15:18 GMT]
| | | | Mervyn Henderson (X) 
Spain
Local time: 00:18
Spanish to English
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| Don't look now ... | Mar 10, 2020 |
... but the OP on a hugely popular thread at the moment seems to fit that description. A genius translator, but apparently has no work as one.
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Mervyn Henderson wrote:
... but the OP on a hugely popular thread at the moment seems to fit that description. A genius translator, but apparently has no work as one.
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| Oops, I DID look | Mar 10, 2020 |
Mervyn Henderson wrote:
... but the OP on a hugely popular thread at the moment seems to fit that description. A genius translator, but apparently has no work as one.
Ha! Say what you like about this forum, it has a way of telling it like it is.
Anyway, suffice it to say I think Drs Luke and Krailsheimer, both sadly now in the great translation agency in the sky, need not fear for their reputation with competition like that offered by the OP.
The category of "genius" is best used with caution, methinks. 
| | | | Michael Newton
United States
Local time: 18:18
Japanese to English
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| Genius translator | Mar 11, 2020 |
When I was 16, I translated a 250-page treatise on nuclear physics from Russian to English ("Tracer Atoms in Catalysis" "Mecheniye atomi v katalize"). I had had two years of Russian tutoring behind me and was pretty confident. I entered the translation as a project in the high school science fair, won a prize and was pretty happy. The prize was one of the factors in my skipping the rest of high school and going straight on to Harvard. Years later, in a different stage of my career, I found mysel... See more When I was 16, I translated a 250-page treatise on nuclear physics from Russian to English ("Tracer Atoms in Catalysis" "Mecheniye atomi v katalize"). I had had two years of Russian tutoring behind me and was pretty confident. I entered the translation as a project in the high school science fair, won a prize and was pretty happy. The prize was one of the factors in my skipping the rest of high school and going straight on to Harvard. Years later, in a different stage of my career, I found myself interpreting between Japanese and Russian for the Russian delegation at an OPEC conference in Tokyo. One of the entertainments for the delegation was a presentation of an excerpt from a traditional Kabuki play. The night before I was told what the play would be ("Musume-no Dojoji"-"the Girl at Dojo Temple" ). I familiarized myself with the plot and prepared a synopsis in Russian. The next day, the curtain rose and it tuned out to be a completely different play ("Shuten Doji" "The Boy Who Guzzles Wine"). Fortunately I was familiar with the plot and was able to save the day. There is an old Hungarian film from the 1980's entitled "Enormous Changes at the Last Moment" and could be a watchword for those of us in a rapidly changing business. While Spanish is not one of my official languages, I lived in Mexico for a while and recently took on a large Spanish-language project on traditional Chinese medicine. It has been a labor of love and hopefully will be of some use to some patients somewhere. I really don't think these things are a matter of genius. You do what you have to do, maintain many interests and always be nimble and ready for new challenges. ▲ Collapse
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Michael Newton wrote:
When I was 16, I translated a 250-page treatise on nuclear physics from Russian to English ("Tracer Atoms in Catalysis" "Mecheniye atomi v katalize"). I had had two years of Russian tutoring behind me and was pretty confident.
Impressive! No relation to Isaac, I presume?
Certainly take your point about doing what you have to do, but I would still reserve the word genius , defined by my dictionary as "exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability" for a beautiful free verse translation of Faust, all the same...
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