Does German literature not translate well to English?

Northern

Northern

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I haven't read much in the way of German works translated to English (The Metamorphosis comes to mind.) Based on Nabokov's dislike for some authors, I have been compelled to look at their works, and one of the writers he seems to have held the most seething contempt for was Thomas Mann (of "Death in Venice" fame.) So I started reading that, and I found it, should I say... uncharming? The first few pages show a tendency to describe things in a correct but intranscendental way, even mentioning details which don't seem to further the story in any way but perhaps to exacerbate boredom. But, most importantly, the language seems strangely convoluted in its constructions, and it rang the bell of a similar feeling I had when reading The Metamorphosis. Thinking that maybe I was on to something (or maybe that I had the bad fortune of dealing with poor translations,) I made it a point to go to Barnes and Noble the other day to see if I could find other examples, and I found Doctor Faustus (also by Mann.) I read about 10 pages, and it was one of the most excruciating experiences I have ever had as a reader who is somewhat familiar with the Tax Code. The language is full of multiple embedded clauses without dramatic revelations anywhere, but just what amounts to me as an ugly, plodding, ponderous style.

Is it just that German literature does not translate well to English? I am aware of the different grammatical constructions of German vs other languages like English, French, and Spanish. But you would imagine that a skilled translator (which the translator for the Faustus book seems to be from the accolades in the dust jacket blurb) would be able to transform a text into something more similar to regular English prose?

One thing I realize from having just read Nabokov is his fluidity and imagination, and in particular the transformative aspect of his adjectives. The man knew how to cast a spell with words.
 
Northern

Northern

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ollinger said:
yes
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This is weird. Who would have thought that a language determines to such an extent how things can be said and translated? I loved The Metamorphosis, though. The awkward translated text adds a little more to the surrealistic nature of the topic.
 
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Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
max said:
I don't think Goethe translates well. But try Mann's Buddenbrooks.
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I'm starting to hate the Mann after my limited experience. I don't think I care much for his style, but maybe I'll drop by B&N and see if I can find it soon, just to read a few pages and confirm my suspicion.
 
max

max

Legend
Northern said:
This is weird. Who would have thought that a language determines to such an extent how things can be said and translated? I loved The Metamorphosis, though. The awkward translated text adds a little more to the surrealistic nature of the topic.
Click to expand...

This is in itself an interesting subject, and perhaps (I'm not saying this because I'm a Christian) one of the biggest and best examples of translation/interpretation disparities/congruities can be seen in the different translations of the Bible. It's pretty remarkable. One can have an extremely literal version, which is hard to read; one can opt for a very readable version, which might seem shaggy; one can opt for an "everyday language" version which might trivialize/oversimplify the subject. Me, I like the Jerusalem Bible: reads like good literature.

I know, too, that there's a GREAT translation of Xenophon's Persian Expedition. . . and I cannot find it. I cannot recall the publisher or translator. The others are just stilted; my edition of Plutarch's Lives is the Clough edition, with heavy Victorian language styling. A good translator is a rare breed.
 
max

max

Legend
fwiw, I find it hard to read Shakespeare: I REALLY have to make an effort to like the style.
 
L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
max said:
This is in itself an interesting subject, and perhaps (I'm not saying this because I'm a Christian) one of the biggest and best examples of translation/interpretation disparities/congruities can be seen in the different translations of the Bible. It's pretty remarkable. One can have an extremely literal version, which is hard to read; one can opt for a very readable version, which might seem shaggy; one can opt for an "everyday language" version which might trivialize/oversimplify the subject. Me, I like the Jerusalem Bible: reads like good literature.

I know, too, that there's a GREAT translation of Xenophon's Persian Expedition. . . and I cannot find it. I cannot recall the publisher or translator. The others are just stilted; my edition of Plutarch's Lives is the Clough edition, with heavy Victorian language styling. A good translator is a rare breed.
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Great example. The Bible is the standard for translations. KJV is the best.

Genesis - 1:1

KJV

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void

NIV

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty [without form is more English, void is more Sanskrit]

ISV
In the beginning, God created the universe [too modern, too French, too scientific, too Star Trek]

TLB
When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was a shapeless, chaotic mass,* with the Spirit of God brooding over the dark vapors.* [Bad. The earth is the subject of the sentence, not God]

. . . to be continued.
 
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Sudacafan

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
Northern said:
I'm starting to hate the Mann after my limited experience. I don't think I care much for his style, but maybe I'll drop by B&N and see if I can find it soon, just to read a few pages and confirm my suspicion.
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I read The Magic Mountain in Spanish, and I liked it very much.
I am curious about what you said, as German and English are from the same branch of languages, though they say German grammar is more complex.
 
L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
Genesis 3:4

KJV

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

NASB
“You surely will not die!" [bad translation]

Douay-Rheims Bible
No, you shall not die the death. [Slight imperfection: more correct: No, you shall not die the Death.

What the serpent is saying is that you will not completely die. You will die, but you will have offsprings, they will die, but they will have offsprings, and your progeny will have the sum knowledge as though you lived for thousands of years. [The I-phone in your hand is the sum of all the computers, magnetic compass, calculators, camera, cassette tape, telephone, telegraph, telegram, television, tele-whatever, facsimile machine, arcade machines, CDs, walkman, walkie talkie, Atari, ColleCo, Activision, it is sum of all the technologies dating back to the abacus, slide rule, wind up clock, clay tablet, printing press, etc . . . ]

Just like He-Man action figures. He-Man's real name is Adam [or Àdăm to be more Hebrew correct]. Adam means Earth-man. The original He-Man is a clay sculpture. The clay sculpture is destroyed, but a mold is made. The mold makes the model, the model makes the mold, get it? [If you don't get it, ask your parents] The original clay-man is gone, Àdăm is gone, but there are many copies of He-Mans, just like us.
 
L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
Northern said:
Is it just that German literature does not translate well to English?
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To translate a work of art, it takes an equally skilled artist.

Here's the original I Kissed a Girl


Here's a better interpretation of I Kissed a Girl [same lyrics] by another artist.

 
L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
LGQ7 said:
Here's a better interpretation of I Kissed a Girl [same lyrics] by another artist.
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How on Earth does one translate:

It felt so wrong.
It felt so right.

A computer would say, "Does not compute."
 
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L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
I can't even understand the words. It does't even make sense.

Naughty Girls

I've been told time and time again
That you can't treat love like a game

But I play rough with hearts that never mend
[Why? You've been told not to do that, time and time again!]

'Cause some guys like you do the same

Love was just a four letter word
[It doesn't mean anything]

Never heard how absurd it could be
But now I can't believe this is real
[absurd yet now real]

How I feel now you steal
My heart away from me

Used to be so good and so bad
Sex was just something I had

Used to always know what to do
Now you've got me confused

Baby don't let me be misunderstood
[If you're confused yourself, how can somebody else understand you?]

Temporary love's so bad but if feels so good

Then along came you
Now I know its true
Naughty girls need love too

 
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Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
LGQ7 said:
To translate a work of art, it takes an equally skilled artist.

Here's the original I Kissed a Girl


Here's a better interpretation of I Kissed a Girl [same lyrics] by another artist.

Click to expand...
But this is completely different in my opinion. You can take a piece of music and change the orchestration, the arrangement, and the tempo. But literature is a whole different thing (unless you think of language as the written equivalent of orchestration.) It seems that since literature deals with human concepts, with mental constructs, that different languages should be able to express the same concepts in a natural manner. But I suppose that when you use a language you are not dealing in pure concepts and the expression of those concepts is modulated or even tainted by the choice of language in such a manner that translation sometimes can be unsatisfactory.

Nabokov was trilingual (Russian, French, and English.) I don't know if he ever wrote in French, but I would be unable to appreciate his Russian works because I don't speak (and I probably never will speak) Russian. But seeing his mastery of English, it is intriguing to think about his Russian works. Apparently he re-translated Ada or Ardor to English himself because the original translation by another person displeased him (no surprise there, regardless of the skill of that other person.)
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
Sudacafan said:
I read The Magic Mountain in Spanish, and I liked it very much.
I am curious about what you said, as German and English are from the same branch of languages, though they say German grammar is more complex.
Click to expand...
I have a different impression. I think German and English are very, very different. I think English is closer to French and Spanish actually. German is a whole new kettle of fish. The sentence structure (Yoda speak) is very convoluted. Yes, German has lent English a lot of words that romance languages didn't derive, but you would be surprised also how much German there is in French and Spanish too.

As a matter of fact, the CIA has a language ranking that even shows this. French, Italian, and Spanish show up as the easiest languages an English speaker can learn. https://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty

The idea that English and German are closer than, say, English and Spanish is a myth. Even if only because of the sentence structure thingy.
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
max said:
This is in itself an interesting subject, and perhaps (I'm not saying this because I'm a Christian) one of the biggest and best examples of translation/interpretation disparities/congruities can be seen in the different translations of the Bible. It's pretty remarkable. One can have an extremely literal version, which is hard to read; one can opt for a very readable version, which might seem shaggy; one can opt for an "everyday language" version which might trivialize/oversimplify the subject. Me, I like the Jerusalem Bible: reads like good literature.

I know, too, that there's a GREAT translation of Xenophon's Persian Expedition. . . and I cannot find it. I cannot recall the publisher or translator. The others are just stilted; my edition of Plutarch's Lives is the Clough edition, with heavy Victorian language styling. A good translator is a rare breed.
Click to expand...
The Bible (at least the King James Version) can have very poetic language. Is that what you mean by the Jerusalem Bible? Sorry, my Bible knowledge is trivial.
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
max said:
fwiw, I find it hard to read Shakespeare: I REALLY have to make an effort to like the style.
Click to expand...
Shakespeare is incredibly lyrical, his language has a dreamlike intemporal quality that is hard to match. There is a lot of indirection and metaphors, but he is always brilliant. For example, consider the famous quote from MacBeth:

Life's but a walking shadow, A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Click to expand...

How can anyone top that? You can't. I bet you can find books that don't say as much in hundreds of pages as Shakespeare does in a couple of sentences there.
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
EloQuent said:
A good translation needs to be done by a good writer who is fluent in both languages. Translating is an art.
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But the Doctor Faustus translation I was reading was supposed to be an acclaimed masterpiece in itself, and I didn't like it. It was so strange, almost unreadable. Here's an article I found that talks about this issue regarding The Metamorphosis: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/13/kafka-metamorphosis-translations

How do you translate the opening sentence?

"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt."

The most common way translators deal with this is to more or less mirror the sentence structure. For example, the first English Translation says:

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

But that sounds so strange. An English speaker would rarely use that sentence structure. Normally you don't say "I found myself transformed in my bed..." but something like "I found myself in my bed, transformed into..."

Also, the "Als" translated as "As" sounds very strange to me. I think "When" is much better in this case. "As" to me implies a more active process, for example "As the train was arriving to the station..." but not something like waking up, at least not in my mind.

I would personally translate it like:

"When Gregor Samsa awoke from disturbing dreams one morning he found himself in his bed, transformed into a hideous creature."

Now, that is how I would translate it, because it sounds good to me as an English speaker. It sounds more natural. But in adapting that simple sentence in this way, how much of the spirit from the original work am I betraying? Should you adapt and contort the language in translation to capture a closer snapshot of the original work, or should a translator exercise a more liberal approach?

That little sentence is not even the beginning of it, because German grammar lends itself so much to very complicated, long sentences with tons of subordinate clauses that can't be gracefully translated to English without a much heftier element of transformation.
 
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L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
Northern said:
. . . But literature is a whole different thing (unless you think of language as the written equivalent of orchestration.
Click to expand...

Not at all. Stage actors can perform a play dramatically or comedically, depending on their moods. Same with a movie script.
 
Mainad

Mainad

Bionic Poster
Northern said:
I have a different impression. I think German and English are very, very different. I think English is closer to French and Spanish actually. German is a whole new kettle of fish. The sentence structure (Yoda speak) is very convoluted. Yes, German has lent English a lot of words that romance languages didn't derive, but you would be surprised also how much German there is in French and Spanish too.

As a matter of fact, the CIA has a language ranking that even shows this. French, Italian, and Spanish show up as the easiest languages an English speaker can learn. https://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty

The idea that English and German are closer than, say, English and Spanish is a myth. Even if only because of the sentence structure thingy.
Click to expand...

Wow, I don't find English and Spanish close in the slightest. German shares many root words and expressions with English (unsurprising as they both have a common origin). Sometimes when you hear German spoken, you can find echoes of English, especially in its older forms. Romance languages like Spanish are completely different in sound and expression although their sentence structure is admittedly more similar.
 
A

Alex78

Hall of Fame
Very interesting topic and the OP is spot on with regard to how difficult it is to aptly translate German into English (and vice versa, by the way).
I myself love Thomas Mann and think his writing is very elegant and full of subtleties and irony. But I can imagine it does not lend well to translation into English.
Actually, I try reading authors in their original language because of exactly this problem (can only competently read German and English literature, though).
A "funny" experience was editing the translation of a scientific book some years ago. We had to translate English into German and pretty quickly found out if we wanted to stay as close to the original writing (sentence structures) as possible, it made for a horrible reading experience in German. But since it was non-fictional, we decided to do just that :laughing:
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
Mainad said:
Wow, I don't find English and Spanish close in the slightest. German shares many root words and expressions with English (unsurprising as they both have a common origin). Sometimes when you hear German spoken, you can find echoes of English, especially in its older forms. Romance languages like Spanish are completely different in sound and expression although their sentence structure is admittedly more similar.
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Yes, I am aware that English and German are both derived from Proto-Germanic (is that the name of that ancestral language?) I just looked, and English and German have a lexical similarity of 60%, whereas other site claims that around 35% of all English words have a similar word in Spanish. But it still looks as if because of the sentence structure that lexical similarity is not as important as it seems. In any case, German is harder to learn for an English speaker than Spanish or French, and I don't think it only boils down to the intrinsic difficulty of the German language, but more to fundamental differences in grammar and sentence structure, and other things (like the composition of words, which although present via juxtaposition in the English language to a certain degree doesn't attain the level of insanity that it has in German. I mean, Betäubungsmittelverschreibungsverordnung. WTF is that? :( ) Sure, you break things and can see things like "mittle" (middle,) "schreibung" (probably something to do with writing,) etc. So there is some vague familiarity, but I think in general because of all those peculiarities it makes German harder.

Take a simple sentence (the first that came to mind, with the help of Google Translate)

English: The person entered the building
German: Die Person betrat das Gebäude
Spanish: La persona entró al edificio
French: La personne est entrée dans le bâtiment

Here you see the verb "enter" is more similar in French and Spanish than it is in German. Yes, the definite article is only similar in German. And then, out of the three it seems the Spanish noun for "building" is the more evocative one, yet in an archaic sense ("edifice") while the German vaguely resembles "abode" and the French... I'm not sure about that one, I can't identify it.

Another one:

English: The child is telling a story
German: Das Kind erzählt eine Geschichte
Spanish: El niño está contando una historia
French: L'enfant raconte une histoire

Now, the article as before is more similar in German, but what is going on? Why Die and Das? Sure, the same happens in Spanish and French to a degree, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of the insanity in the inflection of the German language that is sure to drive any reasonable person to have some serious trouble. Yes, "Kind" reminds me of "Kid" and "Enfant" reminds me of "Infant." "Niño" doesn't remind me of anything. But then, look at the verb. The form (as far as I can see) in German doesn't resemble the English verb at all. But the Spanish and French verbs have a clear corresponding verb in English (to make an account of, to recount a story.) The same goes for "story." The Spanish, French, and English forms really similar, but WTF is "Geschichte"? And things get even more interesting when you look at the verb form. Only English and Spanish use the Present Progressive.

These are just two examples I tried in Google Translate, and I'm sure you can come up with many other examples with the opposite effect. But what I'm saying is that the degree of similarity an etymologist is going to find between two languages is not necessarily something that would be noticeable at first sight by a lay person. It looks as if, when there is a similarity, the romance languages and English are more similar. Regardless of the vast amount of vocabulary which is very similar in English and German, stuff like "man, storm, hound," etc.
 
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Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
LGQ7 said:
Not at all. Stage actors can perform a play dramatically or comedically, depending on their moods. Same with a movie script.
Click to expand...
I was referring to Literature vs Music though, because you were drawing similarities between two music videos.
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
Alex78 said:
Very interesting topic and the OP is spot on with regard to how difficult it is to aptly translate German into English (and vice versa, by the way).
I myself love Thomas Mann and think his writing is very elegant and full of subtleties and irony. But I can imagine it does not lend well to translation into English.
Actually, I try reading authors in their original language because of exactly this problem (can only competently read German and English literature, though).
A "funny" experience was editing the translation of a scientific book some years ago. We had to translate English into German and pretty quickly found out if we wanted to stay as close to the original writing (sentence structures) as possible, it made for a horrible reading experience in German. But since it was non-fictional, we decided to do just that :laughing:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm sure that was painful, but you weren't writing literature, just some writing with denotative scientific value. Your opinions of Mann are very interesting. I don't know if there is something lost in translation from what I have seen, or it's just a matter of taste (or a mixture of both,) but what I have seen is painful from my point of view.
 
stringertom

stringertom

Bionic Poster
The two postwar giants Heinrich Boll and Gunter Grass were more easily adaptable to English than Mann. I read The Clown and The Tin Drum in both English and German as part of my second year of German studies while in college. I enjoyed both authors in their native language but needed to have read the novels in English first to really appreciate their genius.
 
D

dominikk1985

Legend
EloQuent said:
A good translation needs to be done by a good writer who is fluent in both languages. Translating is an art.
Click to expand...

It also needs to be someone who has some skill in poetry and literature himself. Good translations are like their own book as you sometimes have to go away a little from the literal translation and sometimes even meaning to keep the wit and word play but you can't overdo it either.

The German Simpsons translation is great in that regard, they sometimes slightly change the meaning and keep great word plays. For example they translate the "Uranus" (your ****) joke with ur-**** which means like ancestor of all ****.

This dude is a famous German Shakespeare translator and he had a pretty stellar resume as a literature professor and poet, he also was a translator for Sanskrit.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Wilhelm_Schlegel
 
L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
Northern said:
English: The person entered the building
German: Die Person betrat das Gebäude
Spanish: La persona entró al edificio
French: La personne est entrée dans le bâtiment

Here you see the verb "enter" is more similar in French and Spanish than it is in German. Yes, the definite article is only similar in German. And then, out of the three it seems the Spanish noun for "building" is the more evocative one, yet in an archaic sense ("edifice") while the German vaguely resembles "abode" and the French... I'm not sure about that one, I can't identify it.

Another one:

English: The child is telling a story
German: Das Kind erzählt eine Geschichte
Spanish: El niño está contando una historia
French: L'enfant raconte une histoire

Now, the article as before is more similar in German, but what is going on? Why Die and Das? Sure, the same happens in Spanish and French to a degree, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of the insanity in the inflection of the German language that is sure to drive any reasonable person to have some serious trouble. Yes, "Kind" reminds me of "Kid" and "Enfant" reminds me of "Infant." "Niño" doesn't remind me of anything. But then, look at the verb. The form (as far as I can see) in German doesn't resemble the English verb at all. But the Spanish and French verbs have a clear corresponding verb in English (to make an account of, to recount a story.) The same goes for "story." The Spanish, French, and English forms really similar, but WTF is "Geschichte"? And things get even more interesting when you look at the verb form. Only English and Spanish use the Present Progressive.
Click to expand...

Let's go Forensics Linguistics [I don't know anything about German.]

German: Die Person betrat das Gebäude

betrat - be-tread
gebäude - ge-build

Not so foreign.

German: Das Kind erzählt eine Geschichte

kind - kinder-garten - children's garden, KinderCare©
er- +‎ zählen - a telling, tale
geschichte - ok, that's unique to German

2/3 is not bad.

French: La personne est entrée dans le bâtiment

bâtiment - bastion
niño - pickaninny [Ebonics. I love Ebonics]
 
L

LGQ7

Hall of Fame
LGQ7 said:
Let's go Forensics Linguistics [I don't know anything about German.]

geschichte - ok, that's unique to German
Click to expand...

shtick - Yiddish - cognate
A characteristic trait or theme, especially in the way people or media present themselves (often of comedic storytelling).

Not so unique.
 
Vcore89

Vcore89

Talk Tennis Guru
Sounds about right, transliterated:

Our desires are the intimation of the capacities that lie w/in us. They are the harbingers of what we'll be able to achieve.
-- Goethe
 
Northern

Northern

Hall of Fame
LGQ7 said:
Let's go Forensics Linguistics [I don't know anything about German.]

German: Die Person betrat das Gebäude

betrat - be-tread
gebäude - ge-build

Not so foreign.

German: Das Kind erzählt eine Geschichte

kind - kinder-garten - children's garden, KinderCare©
er- +‎ zählen - a telling, tale
geschichte - ok, that's unique to German

2/3 is not bad.

French: La personne est entrée dans le bâtiment

bâtiment - bastion
niño - pickaninny [Ebonics. I love Ebonics]
Click to expand...
LGQ7 said:
shtick - Yiddish - cognate
A characteristic trait or theme, especially in the way people or media present themselves (often of comedic storytelling).

Not so unique.
Click to expand...
These are the perils of playing etymologist. You are adapting something you know to something you see, as opposed to proceeding the other way around, which is what the lay person does.

For example: Betrat. Do you think that most people immediately think of "tread" when they hear or read "Betrat"? I certainly don't. I think of Betray. But even if you remove the obscuring prefix, Trat is no further apparently from "Treat," "Trite," "Trait," or "Trot" (this latter one possibly related etymologically to the one we want, but that's beside the point) than it is from "Tread." What I mean is that Betrat is too removed by layers of obscurity from "Enter." Compare that to the Edificio vs "Building." Edificio can only mean Edifice, and that's all there is to it. The same with the Raconte or Contando in reference to "Telling" (Recounting.)

Just my opinion. Yes, etymologically speaking there might be a lot more common ground, but that is below the surface that the regular bloke can determine upon cursorily looking at a word.

Similar comments regarding bâtiment and niño. Most people would be able to identify niño because of the weather pattern, but not through pickaninny (which actually doesn't come from niño but from the Portuguese word for little boy, pequenino.) See the problem there?
 
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