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English translation: He felt joy and sadness at the same time
01:01 Feb 8, 2016
Russian to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature
Russian term or phrase:Ему было одновременно весело и грустно
I've never found a satisfactory translation for "ему было весело". All the English words that are semantically close are no longer in common use - merry, jolly, etc. "He was having fun" is the closest I can come up with, but it's not great - and it doesn't work well for this phrase. Ideas, folks?
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 17 hrs (2016-02-08 18:20:19 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Quite honestly, aren't we over-thinking this a bit? Happy/sad or joy/sadness will indeed match the original Russian if they were to be translated back, like Anzhelika said. Depending on the context, one might be tempted to say "giddy and subdued", especially if one wanted it to reek of verbosity.
As to asking the natives - I'm one, and, The Misha - I think you're one, as I've tracked your tenure here with some interest. I believe you're right on with your analysis.
Quite honestly, aren't we over-thinking this a bit? Happy/sad or joy/sadness will indeed match the original Russian if they were to be translated back, like Anzhelika said. Depending on the context, one might be tempted to say "giddy and subdued", especially if one wanted it to reek of verbosity.
As to asking the natives - I'm one, and, The Misha - I think you're one, as I've tracked your tenure here with some interest. I believe you're right on with your analysis.
I am with you on this, JW. I also fully support the proposition that if you take a job at all, you'd better make damn sure you do the best job of it you possibly can. So there's no disagreement whatsoever. All I am saying is that whatever your particular word choice chances are you will have to settle for something less than perfect - in this particular case as in many others. That you are still looking probably means that you are a better optimist than I am, is all. That said, I wish you good luck with your project and would be curious to know what particular wording you decide to go with in the end.
@MacroJanus. I do not for a second question the rationale behind your choice. All I am saying is that "I feel bittersweet" gives me this little nagging feeling of being a tad off. Not by much, just a tiny little bit. I know I would never phrase it this way, and the examples you give do not convince me I should. There's plenty of bad prose on the net. Or maybe it's just me.
Re bittersweet. We are given snippets of text, without underlying background. Our translations can be literal, as most here are, and need not be repeated. I chose a rather daring interpretation, just in case it fits the mood of the unknown text. Using the Anglo-Saxon word "bittersweet" also has a more direct emotional appeal that involves more than one sense.
Misha, thanks. Agree with most of that. And about the state of contemporary Russian prose, but let's say I've made the judgment this *is* worth it. What I'm questioning is this: "the further away you go in search of that elusive fata morgana, the worse you fare in terms or readability and style" That statement presumes that the less obvious solution will always be "going further [away]," will always sound more contrived than the obvious one, and that just isn't so. The best answer isn't always "compromise," the currently fashionalbe answer; it's often "keep working." No one promised us it would be easy! That's t
Regarding that bittersweet feeling, but not feeling bittersweet conundrum. Is that just your personal preference or really a bad style? It googles otherwise into plenty of usage examples, like in the books below. Hence my question.
Nothing to do with appropriateness of the suggested translation here, just usage-wise.
I hope you will agree that only precious few authors merit that kind of individual word scrutiny in translation. Speaking of the currently living Russians, there's only one such author in my book, and either way, it's mostly about WHAT he says rather than HOW. The bulk of modern fiction, commercial or otherwise, needs to be heavily doctored before (or during) any attempt at translation to be remotely palatable - and that's before even asking the question of who needs any of that translated mush when we have plenty of our own, made right here in the good old US of A.
Incidentally, this is also why even the best of texts get edited (or at least they should).
but I still disagree. Using your own framework (to the extent one can generalize out of context), veselyi i grustnyi and happy and sad do indeed match each other function-wise - they are just phrased somewhat differently. If I had paid more attention in my general linguistics class back at the time, I guess I'd be talking about semantic fields, or whatever they are, not fully matching, or something to that effect. Happy and sad also have the benefit of being the immediate shoo-in here, unlike joyous, which to me feels a tad contrived, and the further away you go in search of that elusive fata morgana, the worse you fare in terms or readability and style (again, that's a broad generalization; to me, personally, one of the most important things when writing or translating fiction is the inner rhythm, but that's a separate discussion altogether). In the age when literature is increasingly about book sales rather than anything else, this cannot be a good thing. That's what I meant by "who cares what the original says". It has to be a good read (and, presumably, that also means "natural," "authentic," "credible" and what not).To match your Shklovsky, how about Stanislavsky's "Ne veryu"?
If I were to translate that back into Russian, I'd most likely go for "весело/радостно и грустно одновременно". Nothing with счастье/счастлив or anything of that sort; it just wouldn't sound natural to me otherwise. Just in case this might help.
Ah, but it's so much more complex. It has to read well - but it also has to reproduce (to the extent humanly possible) all the functions of the original text. THAT is what literature is all about. (And that's what Skhlovsky meant when he wrote, correctly, that literature is built of devices.) The point is to try NOT to change things, presuming that a solution will be forced, but to find the unforced solution. In this case, the context requires "весело" to mean what it means. Joyous is closer than happy, but I'd like to do better. And the fact that the solution isn't obvious is a good reason to keep thinking about it (and to see what your colleagues might come up with).
solution that just isn't there. Let's face it, things are simply formulated differently in different languages more often than not. What you do then is take what comes as a natural choice in your source and replace it with sth that would be just as natural coming from a native speaker of your target language under the same circumstances. Trying to force something else into the mold to follow the letter of the original would be just that, a forced solution, and it would feel that way. I don't think that's the way to go, not in a creative text anyway.
Come to think of it, I really should make this my professional motto: "Who cares what the original says - as long as the translation reads well":) Isn't that what translating literature is all about anyway?
Nice exercise though. Thanks for asking.
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Answers
23 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +8
He was happy and sad at the same time
Explanation: My take on it
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2016-02-08 02:34:42 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
peer agreement (net): +8