As translators, I think we often feel that we have toughest job in the document workflow; we don’t get to choose what to write, but we have to make the translation sound at least as good as the original and deal with issues like cultural connotations, idioms and untranslatable linguistic tricks.
On the other hand, here’s an insight into what it feels like to be on the other side of the translation fence; a hilarious post by well-known author Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries, the Heather Wells series) describing the experience of receiving copies of her translated books in the mail and not even being able to figure out which of her books she’s looking at.
Hilarious! How did you ever find that? Are you secretely reading “chick lit” in your spare time!? 😉
Too funny! Actually I have never read any of her books, although now I would like to; I came across it on Google. Having both written a book and translated a book myself, I actually thought translating someone else’s book was harder, but her post is a great insight into what it must feel like to be on the receiving end of the translation!
Corinne –
Fabulous! If the covers are that bad, I can’t even imagine what the translation must look like….eeeeek…..
Beth