Originally written by Derek Thornton on July 5, 2009 1:29 PM Don't you have any editors, correctors, proof-readers and the like in Lithuania?

Derek, please have a heart! Those can only cripple my translations!

I think I'll join Nanna in wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July weekend - and then ask that we get back to discussing "Do you translate into a foreign language?" - and so there is no misunderstanding, here's a translation - "do you translate PROFESSIONALLY into a foreign language?

A happy 4th to you.  Our celebration was on July 1, also a birthday, called "Canada Day".  I've made trifle out of our leftover cake - care to have a shared brunch on trifle and fresh cake?

There is a bit of a problem with the word "foreign language", it seems.  What, really does it mean?  My mother tongue is German, and technically English, which I learned at age 5, might be a "foreign language - It is my "native language" and also my strongest language. 

I will contend that we can translate professionally into any language for which we have sufficient proficiency to do so at a professional level.  There are those who would not be able to do so even into their native language which is also their mother tongue.  I would reword the question to:

Do you translate exclusively into your languages of sufficient proficiency?

If prejudice means prejudgment, then I have always considered the idea prejudicial. There is no way that anyone can know any individual's capabilities based on where they have lived for how long or what language was spoken at birth/at home.  You know someone's capabilities by examining their work, their writing, and possibly knowing their actual background.

Maxi

I translate into English mostly, the language which I learned at the age of 8 or 9, but most of my writing and education since the age of 17 was mostly in English. I never wrote any literature in Polish. I translate into Polish,I think I could translate prose into Polish well, I am not sure about poetry, maybe. I cannot translate anything related to banking, very technical texts into Polish. I could translate into Russian general texts, perhaps even literature but I do not type fast in the Cyrillic, so it drives me crazy sometimes to type. I would really have to have it typed. I do not translate into any other language, although I wrote some things in Swedish- literary forms, short.

I agree that this is a very complex problem with mother tongues and native languages, foreign languages. My father spoke mostly Polish for most of his life because he lived in Poland since the time he was about 26, but he only spoke Lithuanian and Russian without any foreign accent. When he studied at the University, Polytechnics, he studied in Polish, took the test in Polish but read most of the books in Russian, because he only went to Lithuanian and Russian schools before moving to Poland. My mother was Silesian, but she did not speak Silesian, or German, only Polish and some foreign languages. My grandparents spoke Silesian the best and German, I guess, they could only write well in German. So which languages are foreign, and which ones are not? Who knows.

Originally written by Dodo Kaipdodo on July 5, 2009 7:19 PM Derek, please have a heart! Those can only cripple my translations!

That seems to me to be illogical, Dodo. You naturally have to have an editor or corrector who is more competent in the target language than you are otherwise I would agree with you. And then you cannot have it both ways. He (or she) might well cripple your translations as you view them with your competence in that target language but that is immaterial, what matters is the improvement that the editor or corrector makes to your translations in the judgement of a competent native writer of that language.

Of course, if you fall in love with your own translations and cannot bear to have anybody tinker with them then you have a problem. When I submit translations of mine to an editor or corrector then I kiss them goodbye. What happens to them after they leave me is something that I would rather not know about, just as I would not care to know what happens to my daughter after she leaves home, not in detail at any rate.

Derek

Originally written by Liliana Boladz-Nekipelov on July 5, 2009 8:12 PM I translate into English mostly, ... I never wrote any literature in Polish. I translate into Polish, I think I could translate prose into Polish well, I am not sure about poetry, maybe.

Have you read anything by Joseph Conrad, Liliana? I once tried to imitate his style, in particular the triple parallelism, but it is not easy (and these days might appear to be affected) and I have often wondered if there is a faint Polish flavor to it since he was already an adult when he learnt English, his third language after Polish and French. I suppose the test would be if his work is easy to translate into Polish.

I guess that his publisher must have had an editor who checked his spelling and grammar and possibly also erased any remnants of Polish usage. I cannot find out anything about his working conditions and methods. Presumably, I would need to find a full biography somewhere for that.

Derek

Ok, Derek, I will gladly do some investigation for you regarding Joseph Conrad. I like him a lot, in fact he is one of my favourites, but I never thought about his writing this way. I will try to translate something. As for his biography, I read some things on the Internet, but I don't remember if they were in English. I will check.  

Originally written by Charlotte Huo on July 6, 2009 9:39 PM it’s very common that translation into a foreign language is stronger than vice versa.

Might well be, but only in this case: you have to choose between two poor translations. One of the poor is likely to be better.

When it comes to translation, it’s very common that translation into a foreign language is stronger than vice versa.

Charlotte, what do you base that on?  What are your observations, and specificallly where have you seen the strengths?

Maxi

I've not read the 34 pages of this thread so don't know what opinions are common here, but my agents used to tell me that they had very often seen people who do better when translating into a foreign language than from the foreign language into mother tongue (We were talking about English-Chinese pair.) I've also Chinese friends complaining that agents only give them English-Chinese assignments while in fact they can do better in Chinese-English. I agree with them especially when talking about English-Chinese language pair.