McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?
Franzeska:
--- Quote from: Moritz on April 25, 2008, 10:31:23 AM ---well, there just aren't that many, not only because of few translations but also because the markets in other countries are much smaller. I recently read a German vampire novel which is in the general urban fantasy direction and it was rather stupid* (there are also 2 werewolf books by the same author, but I didn't bother checking them out).
*the style, the story, the setting, the characters, the (lack of) motivations - everything annoyed me.
--- End quote ---
Ha ha ha. Well, there's no guarantee that foreign books will be any better than American ones, but they're almost certain to be less American. I loved Night Watch specifically because it was set in Moscow and kept mentioning Russian rock bands and random details of modern life there. As always, the real problem is that brilliant authors (and translators for that matter) just aren't as common as bad ones.
Shecky:
--- Quote from: Franzeska on April 25, 2008, 02:16:45 PM ---As always, the real problem is that brilliant authors (and translators for that matter) just aren't as common as bad ones.
--- End quote ---
The only difference between those two camps is that even bad authors can have a following. Bad translators don't work long. And there just aren't that many translators, period; the good ones (i.e., the ones who keep getting work) get held on to like grim death, and companies hunting for good professional translators often end up getting mediocre, uninspired ones... and hang on to them, because they don't want one who's actually BAD.
Most of all, though, competent translators are not cheap when working freelance. I'm one of the few with a full-time contract; I'm making okay money at it (in exchange for stability and reliability of paycheck - you'd be amazed at how many companies hire cousin Fred who took a year of language X back in high school to do their "translations" because it's cheaper that way), but my freelance rates are about double my hourly rate here, and that's far from chump change. Most companies that worship at the Bottom-Line Temple take the cousin-Fred route, and that makes the translation just stupid. Hell, publishing companies want to pay their freaking AUTHORS as little as possible, and those are people who have a direct, quantifiable effect on the company's profits; you think they're going to want to spend enough money to get a quality translation? It's appalling how many corporate suit-racks think that translation is something you can do with a $35 computer program and only grudgingly hire an actual PERSON to translate, and they're NOT going to be willing to pay them what they're worth.
As usual, it comes back to the two-of-three choice: good, fast and cheap. You can get any two together at any time, but never all three. And given the more-and-more-standard corporate mentality, guess which two they choose.
Franzeska:
--- Quote from: Shecky on April 25, 2008, 05:59:48 PM ---Most of all, though, competent translators are not cheap when working freelance. I'm one of the few with a full-time contract; I'm making okay money at it (in exchange for stability and reliability of paycheck - you'd be amazed at how many companies hire cousin Fred who took a year of language X back in high school to do their "translations" because it's cheaper that way),
--- End quote ---
Yeah, no kidding. I have vague aspirations of being a translator, but unfortunately, I'm more cousin Fred level in all of the foreign languages I've studied. Out of curiosity, are you a literary or technical translator? I know companies love to "save money" by hiring idiots to do the technical stuff, but I thought the problems with literary translation went beyond that--that there just isn't enough of a market in the US for translated fiction to support a proper crop of professional literary translators. It seems like everything really famous/good/important is translated by a professor and anything pulpy by someone with no creative writing skills. (Well, ok, not everything, but it does sometimes feel that way.)
Shecky:
--- Quote from: Franzeska on April 25, 2008, 06:51:14 PM ---Yeah, no kidding. I have vague aspirations of being a translator, but unfortunately, I'm more cousin Fred level in all of the foreign languages I've studied. Out of curiosity, are you a literary or technical translator? I know companies love to "save money" by hiring idiots to do the technical stuff, but I thought the problems with literary translation went beyond that--that there just isn't enough of a market in the US for translated fiction to support a proper crop of professional literary translators. It seems like everything really famous/good/important is translated by a professor and anything pulpy by someone with no creative writing skills. (Well, ok, not everything, but it does sometimes feel that way.)
--- End quote ---
The same level of problems exists in both technical and "creative" translation (and I do both); they're just different. The best translations are done by people who are actually experts (or at least extensively knowledgeable) in the field - you can't do a GOOD translation unless you're very familiar with the subject. For example, I can translate a literary text and a user's manual (for most common-market items, anyway), but I wouldn't touch translating a legal or insurance document if my life depended on it. FWIW, a professor's translation is not necessarily a good one, especially if they're prone to a particular school of lit-crit - imagine Dresden translated by someone who's a champion of Marxist lit-crit (i.e., seeing Marxist ideas in everyfreakingthing). Again, the best translators are full-on pros who charge a pretty freakin' penny... and are worth it, because the output is exactly as good as the input. They deliver neither more nor less than is in the original text, and that's a helluva lot harder than it might seem. But, business mentality being what it so often is, "just translate all the words" is too often the order of the day, which is why you get instruction manuals that mean exactly bupkes and works of literature that read flatter than Kansas.
Moritz:
--- Quote from: Franzeska on April 25, 2008, 02:16:45 PM ---I loved Night Watch specifically because it was set in Moscow and kept mentioning Russian rock bands and random details of modern life there. As always, the real problem is that brilliant authors (and translators for that matter) just aren't as common as bad ones.
--- End quote ---
the book I was referring to is a real offender because in one sentence the author rants through his protagonist how many english words people use nowadays, and then a page later he writes "kicken" and "fighten". ::)
abolut translators: I just remembered that I am officially registered as a translator ;D (but not certified. i.e. I have no translator training, just two native languages. I have the registration so that companies get the taxes thing right with me. But I have never translated prose, just interviews and technical reports)
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