Quote:
Originally Posted by Doraneko
I enjoyed it very much. But frankly there are also people that find it too plain as it is just a fun little story, instead of an epic tale with lots of twist and turn. Well, you have to read it once to decide I guess.  |
How can a light novel be epic after 3 volumes? That's the equivalent of maybe 1/2 a regular novel. And there seems to be quite a lot of room for the story to expand.
I personally thought Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai one of the best works of its genre. The gags are well-executed and quite hilarious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doraneko
Hehe somehow I find it much easier to translate nuclear device manuals than literature works. 
It is indeed very true that translation is an art of itself. But the more interesting thing is that unlike most other kinds of art, which stress on self-expression, translations are expected to be transparent layers above the original work invisible to the target reader.
So no, I didn't mean that everything should be preserved word-by-word. Rather, the essence should be extracted skilfully, so that the reading experience per se is kept intact with as little distortion as possible.
Of course, it is impossible to completely wipe out such distortion unless you bring structural changes to the target language. But as translators, they have the responsibility to keep the damage at a minimum by utilizing various creative techniques: this is where the "art" part of translation kicks in.
Btw, there is no inverse proportional relationship between accuracy and ease of reading and they are far from being a zero-sum game. Otherwise translation would be regarded as a science instead of an art .
Well, it depends on your priorities as a translator: for promoting the original work so as to raise its chance of getting licensed, or for catering to the online readers by progressively shaping a certain work into a form that would entertain them. |
What you're saying is fairly impractical though. Sure, that is what a translator can strive for, but in the end you settle for what's realistic. Like I said, I've seen translations of popular commercial works done by I'm sure very professional translation teams with layers of editing. And still come up quite short with tons of WTF text when you compare it with the original.
Sometimes, the language/cultural barrier pwns all.