According to popular opinion, anyone can translate. Even AI can do it. You just type the text in front of you in the target language! And, of course, everyone knows their own native language – what could be so difficult about that? Novels especially must be easy: you don’t even need any specialist knowledge for those.
And so, I begin a long-planned series about translating literature and what needs to be considered when doing it.
When I enrolled, over thirty (!) years ago, in my degree in Applied Linguistics and Cultural Studies (as the faculty was called back then) in Germersheim, it stated on the application form that candidates with a grade of 4 or lower in German class were strongly advised against pursuing the course. Which, at the time, I found utterly ridiculous: you’re German, you grew up in Germany, did your Abitur (A-levels) in Germany – of course you know German! What does a school grade in German really say about your actual command of the language, anyway? All we did in class was write boring characterisations, interpretations, and essays that nobody actually needs!
Little did I know.
First of all, the German grade on the Abitur diploma isn’t just about spelling. Yes, you should be able to spell; no, most people can’t – but unless you work as a proofreader, up to a point it’s really not the end of the world.
It’s about how well you understand the text. You develop this comprehension skill through interpreting, characterising, and writing essays. And that’s absolutely essential when translating literature.
We begin part one of this series with the characterisation of people:
A novel typically has several main characters. Often totally different personalities with very distinct ways of expressing themselves. Just like in real life! And to capture the essence of each person right when translating, you have to characterise them. I don’t mean you need to write a profile on each and every character. But you do need to grasp what makes a character tick in the original and convey that very same character in the translation.
For example:
A common trope played out in pulp novels: a rich and successful man in his thirties, often an entrepreneur (lawyer, real estate developer, tech exec, you name it), falls hopelessly in love with a young woman in her early twenties, usually from a small town (in the US). Her mother typically has died of (breast) cancer, while her father hasn’t been around for as long as she can remember. Naturally, she never went to college – she never had the money. (And, of course, she promised her mother on her deathbed that she’d remain a virgin until her wedding night. All the while, the guy bangs anything with a pulse – but that’s just a side note).
The man is usually characterised as intelligent, cold, uptight, and distant. But he’s a billionaire and incredibly successful – and you don’t make your way to the top, at least in the professions common in these books, without a certain amount of eloquence. So, the man must come across as very proper and formal. There’s simply no way he’d say something like “Kannste knicken” (“Forget about it” / “No chance”) or “Ich stehe nicht so auf Fühlifühli” (“I’m not into all that touchy-feely stuff”). “Fühlifühli” doesn’t actually exist in German and sounds like toddler babble, certainly not the words of a successful entrepreneur. He’d say things more along the lines of “Mit dieser Vorgehensweise bin ich nicht einverstanden” (“I don’t agree with this approach”) or “Emotionen sind im Allgemeinen überbewertet” (“Emotions are generally overrated”). (Can you hear how square this guy sounds? Can you picture him standing there looking dapper in his designer suit? Well, it has to be exactly like that).
Our female protagonist, in contrast, comes from a humble background – and she’s young. She expresses herself much more colloquially than the man. Her speech is chilled, friendly, informal – maybe a little simplistic – but still with perfectly correct grammar. After all, she’s not stupid or uneducated! Saying “Kannste knicken” (“Forget about it” / “No chance”) would suit her character just fine.
Now, imagine the two head out to a bar one evening and a drunk woman starts bothering them. Would she speak to them politely? “Bitte entschuldigen Sie, aber was machen Sie hier?” (“Excuse me, but what are doing here?”). Probably not. It would be more like “Ey, was macht ihr hier?” (“Oi! what you doin’ here?”). And she probably wouldn’t say it clearly either; she’d be slurring her words. Otherwise, as a reader, you’d be left wondering how on earth this sober professor ended up in such a dump in the first place.
The next day, our female protagonist meets a young refugee boy, who has been living in Germany for the past year. No one can speak perfect German after just one year. But since it would be terribly annoying to read a long text in broken German, and the young refugee is meant to be a sympathetic character in the book, he speaks grammatically correct, anyhow – but naturally, he uses very simple language. It just wouldn’t be fitting for his character to have an extensive German vocabulary at his disposal. You wouldn’t hear him say something like “Ich ging damals noch zur Schule und habe gute Noten erzielt” (“I was still in school back then and achieved good grades”), rather, he would say “Damals war ich in der Schule und hatte gute Noten” (“Back then I was in school and had good grades”). His German is more book-learned than colloquial, so, a phrase like “Kannste knicken” would never pass his lips.
Unfortunate for our protagonist, she then ends up kidnapped by a Russian thug. He’s built like a tank, bald, and a bit thick. He never took a German class and little details like proper grammar aren’t exactly on his radar. He prefers to use his fists. So, his character speaks broken German. Even if it doesn’t necessarily come across like that in the English original! You wouldn’t translate “I like your car” directly as “Mir gefällt dein Auto”, it would be better with the incorrect adjective ending, like “Schöne Auto” (“Nice motor”). As you read the words, you should basically hear the Russian accent in your mind!
Our protagonist is then rescued by a really simple-minded construction worker, who is characterised as a complete bonehead. He’s most likely glued to his Facebook all day. His basic level of education should be reflected in the way he expresses himself. However, the text still needs to be readable! “Ich hab‘ dich nich‘ g’sehen” (“I ain’t seen ya’”) would convey a less polished way of speaking, but reading all those apostrophes is going to get tiresome very quickly. For such characters, I like to throw in copious amounts of the (grammatically incorrect) pluperfect tense: for example, the German “Ich war in die Schule gegangen und hatte Bescheid gesagt gehabt” would work well for a nonstandard English sentence like “I goes up to the school and I says to them”.
So, how can I work a teenager into the plot now? Anyway, somewhere a super-cool six-teen-year-old girl pops up. Covered in piercings and with dyed hair. You would certainly hear her say something like “Kannste knicken” (“Forget about it” / “No chance”), and typically things like “Chill mal dein Leben” (“Chill, bro”), or “nices Auto” (“sweet ride”). Not too over the top – that would be cringe – but a teenager should sound like a teenager! She’d never say “I’m hungry”, rather “I’m starving” or “I could eat a horse right now”.
These distinct modes of expression of the different characters are essential for the reader to paint a mental picture and to put themselves in the characters’ shoes. And it’s got to be consistent throughout the novel. When reading the dialogue between the rich entrepreneur and the sixteen-year-old girl, you should be able to hear in your mind who is saying what – from their distinctive voices and tones. Because it’s only when you can empathise with the characters: laugh and cry with them, feel their pain, or hate their guts as much as the protagonist does, that a book is truly a great book!
This fabulous English translation of the German original was brought to you by Thomas Carville.
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