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It depends on the intent.

If I want to learn about a culture and language, an objective translation is what I want. E.g. I want to learn the idioms of the time and place, not have them changed by the whim of the translator to something similar but perhaps changing the intent

If I want to persuade or illuminate the topic, then by all means a more approachable translation with modern idiom is more useful.

An example I know of is, an early Dolby cassette recording from a Japanese source had the marketing copy "Smells of the lamp of high technology!" Which is meaningless, even humorous to a Westerner. Not good marketing copy.

But I enjoyed learning something of Japanese culture. That things could 'smell of' something as a way of imagining them.

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ElevenLathe 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I look at translations as works by themselves. I don't think it's possible to recreate the feeling of experiencing a work in its original language without actually learning that language. One truly cannot experience Shakespeare unless one reads him in the original Klingon.

That doesn't mean that translations are useless, but you're kidding yourself if you think you understand the phrase that translated to "smells of" in the same way that a Japanese person would. It's evocative to you, but native speakers may not even think of it as a metaphor. As an example, do you think of a human face when someone refers to the "face" of a clock? Do you imagine an organist when someone says they are "pulling out all the stops"?

Only real Japanese speakers can experience works of art in Japanese, just as Germans who don't speak English can't actually experience Hasselhoff the way Americans do, try as they might. People can create works of art inspired by the originals, and call them translations, but they are new works.

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dmurray 3 days ago | parent [-]

I would watch the movie adaptation of a book I enjoyed, or vice versa, but I wouldn't read a book in translation that I'd already read in the original, and I don't think many people would. (I might read the original after the translation).

So in some sense a translation is less of a unique work than a film adaptation.

Classical scholars are an exception here, who might read Homer in half a dozen translations. But that's for two reasons: firstly, classical scholars are likely translators themselves, or at least students of the art of translation; secondly, there are only so many great Ancient Greek texts to read in the original.

	▲	ElevenLathe 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		To each their own. I've read books in my second language that were translations of English books I'd already read. To be fair, that had been mostly pedagogical. I've also read multiple translations of the Illiad, for example, and don't know any ancient Greek. I've also read modernizations of Shakespeare. Art is a complex thing, and doesn't really respect the commodity form. The same "work" can be totally different to people with different experiences, skills, neuroses, etc. You can read the same book twice and enjoy it, or not, differently each time. People enjoy live music exactly because each performance is different. Ultimately we're all trying to wring meaning from our lives, and art is a tool to give you some leverage in that work.

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card_zero 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's the etymology of redolent. To be redolent of high technology, taken literally, means to smell similar.

	▲	JoeAltmaier 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Cool! But then there's the 'lamp' part. The idiom is a little more indirect - doesn't 'smell of' high technology. Just smells of it's lamp.

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_aavaa_ 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> E.g. I want to learn the idioms of the time and place, not have them changed by the whim of the translator to something similar but perhaps changing the intent

But how can you learn the meaning of an idiom if it's translated literally? For example, even in context, "and now we have the salad" can be pretty baffling.

	▲	JoeAltmaier 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Read more I guess, until a variety of contexts makes the meaning more clear.