Translating into my native language
When tweelore asked me to translate one of her fanfics into Russian, I didn't hesitate. It gave me a chance to do something I don't really get a chance to do all that often - translate something into my native language.
Much as part of me cringes to admit it, translating from Russian to English is easy. Every once in a while, I get tripped up by slang, or some business/political term, but those things are usually easy to look up. The only really tricky part is to figure out how to strike a careful balance between the author's language and the author's intent. It's especially true in fiction, where an author's voice matters more than it would in, say, a newspaper article.
Translating it the other way around is a whole other story. When you translate from Russian to English, you know what the Russian word, and picking out the English equivalent is easy. But picking out a Russian equivalent is much more of a struggle. It's one thing to understand a word - it's another to try to use that word in a sentence. One requires passive understanding - the other requires application. And, much as I hate to admit it, application doesn't come as easily to me as it used to. And, for some reason, trying to figure out a Russian equivalent of English phase is more challenging then figuring out the English equivalent of a Russian one.
The last time I tried to translate it the other way around was my ill-fated attempt to translate Alex de Campi's mytho-historical mobile comic thingy. I say "ill-fated" because I only got paid $5 for the effort, but mostly because it really drove home just how rusty I was. I haven't tried anything like that again... until Lore's fanfic.
It was much shorter, so it was less daunting. And, honestly, I wanted to see if I could actually do it so much that I was willing to risk it becoming a pain.
In the end, it was... interesting. Some parts came easily. Other parts I had to think about. Some parts I would struggle with, and then, suddenly, the right word or phase would come to me like, as I put it to Lore, a long-lost friend. Because there was joy in discovering that those words and phrases are still in my brain somewhere - they just needed to be pried loose.
And sometimes, I did have to resort to using an English-Russian dictionary. It is what it is.
In the end, I was satisfied with the end result - but I was still happy that Lore decided to run it by two Russian speakers. Just because I was satisfied with it doesn't mean I was sure I got it 100 percent right (and besides, no matter what language you use, it never hurts to have someone double-check your work).
Would I do something like this in the future? Absolutely. I would like to see how much more I can pry loose.
But, at least for now, translating something a bit more novella-length may still be too daunting.
Much as part of me cringes to admit it, translating from Russian to English is easy. Every once in a while, I get tripped up by slang, or some business/political term, but those things are usually easy to look up. The only really tricky part is to figure out how to strike a careful balance between the author's language and the author's intent. It's especially true in fiction, where an author's voice matters more than it would in, say, a newspaper article.
Translating it the other way around is a whole other story. When you translate from Russian to English, you know what the Russian word, and picking out the English equivalent is easy. But picking out a Russian equivalent is much more of a struggle. It's one thing to understand a word - it's another to try to use that word in a sentence. One requires passive understanding - the other requires application. And, much as I hate to admit it, application doesn't come as easily to me as it used to. And, for some reason, trying to figure out a Russian equivalent of English phase is more challenging then figuring out the English equivalent of a Russian one.
The last time I tried to translate it the other way around was my ill-fated attempt to translate Alex de Campi's mytho-historical mobile comic thingy. I say "ill-fated" because I only got paid $5 for the effort, but mostly because it really drove home just how rusty I was. I haven't tried anything like that again... until Lore's fanfic.
It was much shorter, so it was less daunting. And, honestly, I wanted to see if I could actually do it so much that I was willing to risk it becoming a pain.
In the end, it was... interesting. Some parts came easily. Other parts I had to think about. Some parts I would struggle with, and then, suddenly, the right word or phase would come to me like, as I put it to Lore, a long-lost friend. Because there was joy in discovering that those words and phrases are still in my brain somewhere - they just needed to be pried loose.
And sometimes, I did have to resort to using an English-Russian dictionary. It is what it is.
In the end, I was satisfied with the end result - but I was still happy that Lore decided to run it by two Russian speakers. Just because I was satisfied with it doesn't mean I was sure I got it 100 percent right (and besides, no matter what language you use, it never hurts to have someone double-check your work).
Would I do something like this in the future? Absolutely. I would like to see how much more I can pry loose.
But, at least for now, translating something a bit more novella-length may still be too daunting.