“Just” a translation?

Eine gute Übersetzung ist so viel mehr als der gleiche Text in einer anderen Sprache – und wer das nicht zu schätzen weiß, treibt unsere Kolumnistin zur Verzweiflung.

I’m often asked to translate German texts into English. I don’t enjoy doing this — not because of the work as such, but because of a frequent side effect: The more English the translation becomes, the less German it sounds — and some authors get upset about this. (I hear Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” playing in my head when this happens.) The more native-sounding the translation, the less the authors recognize their own work. Sigh.

In an English translation, the grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure should not be Germanic. If you think that goes without saying, then you’re one of the cool kids. Many people don’t understand this. The English language, for example, has a larger word pool than German, and English translations are usually much shorter than the German originals. The goal of an English translation is to sound not like the author, but like a native English speaker with the author’s German soul.

So, whatever you’re writing, my advice to you is this: Always think of your audience. In Spotlight 13/20, I told you that writing fiction is like acting — you have to be inside your characters’ heads. Now, here’s the flip side: You also have to get inside your readers’ heads. You have to ask yourself: “To whom am I speaking?”, “How much do they know about my subject?”, “What is their point of departure?”

Not long ago, I was asked to translate the guidebook of a city in former East Germany — written by someone who had lived under the regime of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and experienced its collapse. The author knows a lot about East Germany, and so do I. The guidebook, however, was intended for English-speaking tourists spending a few hours in that city. This meant I had to add and subtract text here and there because the original presumed too much knowledge about what had once been East Germany. Germans touring the city with the German guidebook would understand it without further explanation, while the average foreign tourist would need a little more information. And this is why a translation is more than “just” a translation. Good translators always keep in mind the readers’ cultural background.

As W. Somerset Maugham once said: “A good rule for writers: Do not explain overmuch.” This is true. Good fiction leaves the reader wanting more. You don’t have to say everything up-front, all at once. Leaving something to the imagination is the key to good writing, especially fiction. A story should be allowed to unfold. On the other hand, presuming too much knowledge on the part of the reader also means that you could be overshooting your audience.

What do your readers need to know? What is best left unsaid? What parts do readers often skip? These are questions that writers have to ask themselves, and the answer — as with many things in life — is to find that delicate balance.