Has anyone here translated a book? Is it a useful practice

it should

that being said, translation is a very hard work (if done moderately well) for mostly low pay

>>8515145
I asked that to my highschool teacher (I thought of translating 1984 to my language, as I read it), but my teacher strongly opposed it. I don't think translation would be a good practice. It would surely improve your usage of that language, but it is a great hassle. You can use that time more effectively to practice the language.

>>8515145
I don't think you'd be asking if you knew how long it takes - I'm talking normal translation work here, even, not translation of a language you don't know yet. Much worse, as you'll imagine. Advise against it.

>>8515286
>>8515236
>>8515211
What if you felt like you could deliver a translation better than what's available?

>>8515145
no but i have had some of my work translated
it's kind of fun

>>8515326
If your goal is to translate the stuff then that's a different question - though it might still be more efficient for you to get a comfortable grasp of the language from simply reading and learning beforehand, yielding a better translation - even if you have an annotated text, language subtleties aren't usually pointed out with a foreign reader in mind

How is this translation of roughly the first page of The Stranger. I've been working on it this morning:

Today, mom died. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a message from the home: "Mother dead. Funeral tomorrow. Regards." It doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.

The old folks home is in Marengo, about 80 kilometres from Algiers. I'll take the bus at two o'clock and arrive in the afternoon. So, I'll be able to keep vigil and return tomorrow night. I asked my boss for two days off and he could not refuse me with such an excuse. But he did not seem pleased. I even told him, "it's not my fault." He didn't respond. I then thought I shouldn't have told him that. In short, there was no need to apologize. It was rather his obligation to offer me condolences. But he will probably after tomorrow, when he sees me in mourning. For the moment, it's as if mom weren't dead. After the funeral, on the contrary, it'll be a closed case and assume a more official air.

>>8515641
Doesn't really carry the tone of the original imo. The english itself is besides awkward and, if that >>8515326 was you: it's certainly not better than what's available

>>8515791
Can you compare any specific word choices, phrases, or sentences to other translations?

What is wrong with the tone? And how is the english awkward (besides some obvious errors).

I'm just curious, not hostile. I'd appreciate the criticism.

>>8515824
Camus' style in the Stranger is deliberately simple but not completely informal, because it shouldn't be too "familiar". that's why I could confidently say that existing translations are better without actually looking at them - that, the opening sentence (more on this later) and the outright bad parts:
>So, I'll be able to
>But he will probably after tomorrow
which are either not proper, "writing style" english, or just awkwardly phrased in context, like
>In short, there was no
>It was rather his obligation to

but since you're asking here are some comparisons with the translated version I have on file:
>Cela ne veut rien dire.
>It doesn't mean anything
>That doesn’t mean anything.
Small difference, but here you've simply chosen the wrong word; "It" would have been "Ca"
>L’asile de vieillards
>The old folks home
>The old people’s home
I can't honestly say the other translation is better because it's way more polite than the original, but yours is more familiar in tone (effects like this pile up...)
>arrive in the afternoon
>get there in the afternoon
"arrive" is much more stuffy and formal in english than in french
>Ainsi, je pourrai
>So, I'll be able to
>That way I can be there for
In addition to being questionable english as to style, yours is a bad literal translation
and so on, there are more;

Oh and the opening sentence: it is very famous and there are diverging opinions on how to translate it, so that it's both something you as an amateur/non-french speaker probably can't be expected to know about and something very important that a translation will be immediately judged on. Starting the sentence with "Aujourd'hui" is idiomatic in french, but starting with "mom" (...) is the equivalent in english, and what should be used; and then there's the issue of how "maman" is translated, which I won't get into but I'm sure you can find discussions about all over the place. (that translation had "Maman died today")

>>8516020
Thank you for this input. Really appreciate it, it's more than I could have asked for.

My trouble is that so many words in French seem interchangeable. Especially it/that/this seems to have a hundred variations. I have already made some edits before your post which have addressed some of your concerns.

I was reading a lot about that first sentence this morning, and I decided to go with something bold, I guess. My rationale for using mom instead of mother is the sense that maman seems like a more endearing term. And meursaults problem is often that he can't express himself adequately to others, despite often having good feelings or intentions. I think using mom, instead of mother, or maman best gives this sense. I understand there are poetic elements to consider as well (two syllables vs one).

I have seen Mother died today, Maman died today, and Today, maman died. Maman isn't really a translation, and I think mom is a suitable alternative. It's not as infantile as mama or as formal as mother, and not as pretentious as maman (pretentious in an English text).

>>8516122
yw, though let me amend my comment on "vieillard" - its connotation in french has changed over the last couple centuries, with the current expressions being more recent developments, so that while it would be disrespectful or dismissive today, it probably was just the regular expression for a home back then.

I'm not exactly disagreeing on the opening line btw, though I tend to prefer exoticist translations overall, "mom" is better than "mother" - but starting with "today" (besides the fact that time usually goes last in english) seems off, like you're writing a diary or are going to list the things that happened today. I imagine that shifting the focus on this for added emotional distance is what the translations opting for it are going for, but that's not there in the original.