Nice article, Redwolf.

Here are two Irish phrases that I would never translate literally (unless I was explaining Irish grammar or idiom to someone).

Tá caife agam / There is coffee at me (I have coffee)
Tá caife uaim / There is coffee from me (I want coffee)

I really like a certain phrase that I read in Diego Maradona's autobiography. When he talks about soccer matches, he often says “We vaccinated them!” Apparently, that means they penetrated the defence like a needle. The translator wanted to keep some of Maradona's writing style, so he decided not to use English idioms like “We hammered them” or “We thrashed them."

It's hard to know where to draw the line with that kind of thing. Too much of the original idiom make the text unreadable to people who don't know the source language.

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

It's something of an issue with teaching as well. Some students really benefit by knowing the "literal" meaning of the idiom (they make note of the fact, for example, that possessions are "at" one, but illnesses are "on" one, and that is helpful to them). Others really don't benefit from that at all...in fact, it's a stumbling block to them, and they do better simply learning the rule without learning the "translated" form of it.

My daughter is fond of a couple of Japanese manga, both of which do a really good job of translating not only idioms, but also nicknames and concepts, into a form that makes more sense to their foreign readers. For example, if the kids in the original story like to go out for Korean barbecue, that may get converted to pizza or burgers in the American version. While it does make the stories a bit more approachable for foreign readers, it also puts up a cultural barrier...why shouldn't American kids relate to Japanese kids going out for Korean barbecue? Heck...maybe they'll even develop a taste for it themselves! The nicknames, on the other hand, make a bit more sense, as what constitutes a good nickname in Japanese might be utterly incomprehensible in English! As you say...hard to know where to draw the line.

It's even a dilemma between different forms of English. I remember J.K. Rowling being adamant that "British" terms in the Harry Potter book not be Americanized in the U.S. versions -- with one exception: "jumper" was changed to "sweater" (she didn't want her American readers to envision Harry and Ron running around in pinafore dresses, which is what a "jumper" is in the U.S. ).

Redwolf

Redwolf,
Thanks for info on article. Quite interesting and should be read by anyone attempting a translation- in particular those who are given to speaking in Irish and thinking English.
Séamus

About the two sentences you given there in Irish, personally I think it is important to understand their 'literal' sense, otherwise I don't see how you can get to grips with the way the language functions. Obviously once you can understand that, you can go to the next stage which is understanding these sentences as a whole, in the same way an Irish speaker would. But, as you say you have students who prefer to learn it another way, if it suits them, they're the best judge of that.
I do a fair amount of translating, sometimes I have to put quite a lot of thought into finding an equivalent phrase or expression that fits - I use sites such as Linguée, Wordreference or Reverso simply to get ideas when I'm stuck. But I would also like to say that it very much depends on what kind of 'flavour' you want to give to your translation - equivalent or very literal (to give the reader an authentic 'taste' of the original - which is what I'm doing with Darby O'Gill). Have you seen what he says about the way the Hobbit has been translated into Irish on the Cork Irish Wordpress blog, he's not very happy about it. I regularly find myself confronted with appalling translations of children's books (English to French) which means I can't use them with students because they're just so unreliable. I think they are an insult to the author as the translator obviously thinks they know how to write a better text than him or her, either that or they just haven't understood anything whatsoever about the original.

Why do people use 'barbecue' to describe sam gib sal etc?

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

No idea. I don't eat it, so I've not given it much thought. I imagine because it's cooked over direct flame and has a spicy sauce, which in the U.S., at least, translates to "barbecue" in most peoples' minds.

Redwolf

Yes. Perhaps Korean immigrants just found that describing their restaurants as "Korean Barbecue" attracted more customers in English-speaking countries than "sam gib sal" ever would.

In Japan, they went with 焼き肉 yakiniku which simply means "cooked meat" but it is only really used with the Korean dish.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Proponents of the "full immersion" method often don't want (or care about) the literal translation. They favor learning a language as a child learns it. After all, a child growing up speaking Irish probably doesn't think in terms of "a cold is on me, but my toy truck is at me"...he or she simply learns the correct forms in context.

Personally, I'm not a fan of this kind of learning for adults (we can get some idea of how it works by thinking of the number of people who have come to us in the past asking about things they've encountered on Rosetta Stone, which uses this approach), but some people like it.

Redwolf