Found In Translation

Hello world, I hope you did not worry too much about me during my mini hiatus haha ;) I was on my spring break. Unfortunately, I was not able to travel anywhere warm or exotic because of my commitment to the baseball team. Fortunately, this gave me an ample amount of time to read the book Walk Two Moons (book webpage) by Sharon Creech......in Spanish. I wish that this had been a spontaneous decision of mine, but in truth, our spanish teacher assigned us to read a book of our choice in Spanish over break. I chose Entre Dos Lunas because it was a book that I probably should have read as a child, but never got around to it. So, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Little did I know it would lead to my next blog post!

As I was reading, I thought the translator did a really nice job taking the story and bringing it to life using the Spanish language. Since I have not read the English version, I had nothing to compare it to, but the story seemed to have most of the nuances that I expect were written into the original. The tone of the vibrant, energetic characters was clear and the occasional sarcasm was not lost in translation. So was this really any different than reading the book in English? Does reading anything in another language have an impact on the readers' experience? How much?

After some thought and a little poking around on the Internet, I have concluded that the answers to those questions are respectively: Yes, Yes and It Depends. While reading Entre Dos Lunas, there were still some aspects of the story that were not able to be carried over to Spanish. For example, there is a character named Margaret Cadaver. Obviously the word cadaver has no meaning in the Spanish language. Despite this and a few other things, I found that reading Entre Dos Lunas was very enjoyable and nothing appeared to be left out.

Still, I think the translation of a novel, poem, etc. can potentially downgrade the reader's experience. One reason for this is a sub-par translation. Here is one blogger's take on translators that I agree with. However, even if you read the best translation possible, there will be parts that cannot crossover, especially in great works of literature that the author has crafted skillfully using the original language.

This is not to discourage anyone from reading a translated text. If the only way you can read Pablo Neruda is in english, then by all means read it! But, keep in mind that you're reading a text that is subject to the whims of a translator and may not offer all the original does.