Like-Blog
Presenting you the most interesting translation solutions
Why Like-Blog? Now, first of all, this blog is a blog that you should like (and read regularly) – at least, if you are interested in translation. Then, the topic discussed here is one in which the meaningful likeness between a text and its translation in the language pair English-German plays a key role. On this page, I will take a close look at some interesting translation solutions that I have come across in the course of my work as a translator and translation scholar.
A translation solution is only as good as the arguments that support it. This means that any translation criticism, whether positive or negative, needs to be justified. The quality of a translation solution shows only when we compare it to other possible translation solutions in a given translation situation. Therefore, a translation critic should not only say why a translation solution is bad, but also demonstrate what a better solution might look like. I will try to stick to these principles of translation criticism. So if you have any questions regarding my line of argument or if you disagree, please, let me know your opinion by phone at +49 4171 6086525 or by e-mail to bittner@businessenglish-hamburg.de. So much for the introduction. I hope you’ll enjoy reading this blog!
An unlikely translation solution (April 2019)
Looking up “unlikely” in a bilingual dictionary, you will get “unwahrscheinlich” as the German translation. This translation is still plausible if you consult monolingual dictionaries for the respective entries of the two adjectives. However, when it comes to translation practice, you will often encounter problems because the German equivalent doesn’t quite fit into the target language context. This is what the following example is about.
In “Rethinking Marx” by Peter Gumbel, an article that appeared in Times Magazine of 29 January 2009, we find the following sentence: Brown's political opponents on the right are also on the attack, but much of the criticism is coming from another source: church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who harbors an unlikely sympathy for a man whose followers adopted atheism as a state creed. The translation of this sentence comes across rather idiomatically: Browns politische Gegner von rechts gehen ebenfalls zum Angriff über, aber die Quelle der schärfsten Kritik ist eine andere: Kirchenoberhäupter wie der Erzbischof von Canterbury, Rowan Williams, der natürlich keine große Sympathie für einen Mann hegt, dessen Anhänger den Atheismus zu einem Staatscredo gemacht haben. Yet, unfortunately, this translation is wrong. Why? Because the translator fell into a trap set by the right translation strategy.
Presumably, the translator tried in a first step to use the translation of “unlikely” as given in the dictionary. However, the combination of adjective and noun in the resulting nominal phrase “eine unwahrscheinliche Sympathie” would suggest a meaning that cannot be right in the context: it would be sympathy of an enormous extent. This colloquial meaning of “unwahrscheinlich” is comparatively frequent because the standard use of the attributive adjective is restricted to certain expressions such as “der unwahrscheinliche Fall” (that is, an unlikely case) or “eine unwahrscheinliche Ausrede” (an excuse that is not likely to be true). In the second step, the translator apparently looked at the context, drawing a logical conclusion with regard to what she thought should be Rowan Williams’ opinion of Karl Marx (who is the person behind the noun phrase “a man”). The problem is that “unlikely” thwarts such an obvious conclusion, emphasising that the exact opposite is true: an “unlikely sympathy” does not mean that this sympathy doesn’t exist; rather, it means that its existence is quite unexpected. Therefore, an alternative translation could be: ... Rowan Williams, der – man sollte es nicht meinen – Sympathie für einen Mann hegt, dessen ....