January 28, 2025 • 33 mins
How much meaning is lost when you are reading a translation?
Today is a special episode where I am going over my findings from reading 'O Alquimista' in the original Portuguese and it's English translation side by side. I found that although the grammar prompt some differences the biggest effect was stylistic choices by the translator. This includes minor things like cutting out words/sentences to larger alterations such as removing potentially 'racist' remarks.
Would love to hear your feedback and appreciate any support you wish to give :)
The Alchemist Book Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o40-BJkfLE
Tao Te Ching Book Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thoq-1gwZLo
Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:01) Direct Observations
(00:17:31) Indirect Observations
(00:27:34) Summary
(00:30:17) Value 4 Value
(00:31:55) Join Live!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyrin Down (00:00):
How much meaning is lost when you are reading a translation?
Welcome everyone to another episode of the mere mortals book reviews live here on the 29th January 2025.
I'm your host, Kyrin. And as you surmise, this is the podcast where I read the same books over and over and over and over again and do the same reviews over and over and over again.
(00:28):
No. Okay. We don't do that. But I kinda am doing that today in a weird context because I am reading and doing a special episode of translations
related to my readings of these 2 books here, O Alquimista,
AKA The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
I have done a book review on this before, so, you know, basic stuff
was published in 1988.
(00:50):
The original, the translation I have here, I believe, was published in 1993.
It's 206 pages in length, or is it a 169?
We'll have to look into that. And it's probably about 3 hours reading in the
both Portuguese and English. I think it, probably a bit longer than the Portuguese, actually. Let let's say 5 hours.
(01:11):
So this episode is gonna go over my direct observations from reading a book in the original Portuguese
language versus in English and noticing any translation differences between the 2. I'll then go on to talk about just some interesting things you will find in translations
just in general, the art of translation, if you wanna put it, like that, that I've noticed over a couple of years related to other books that I've read in originals,
(01:38):
as well as just things that you might observe in in some of the books that I have not read,
particularly because of the way it was translated.
And then we'll just, finish off with just a little bit of a summary on
translation notes and things that might help you if you are,
going to read a book that's translated and you want certain aspects or don't want certain aspects.
(02:00):
So let's jump into the direct observations that I got from reading,
The Alchemist and UAlchemistah.
Now, as I mentioned, I've already done a book review of this, so link is down below.
And my general approach for this was to read
the the book, UAlchemistah,
in the original Portuguese
(02:22):
as much as I could just reading it through certain areas, I'd stumble upon a word here or there, which I didn't know.
And for this, I would just use a direct translating tool. Usually, it'd just be a verb, but sometimes it would be like, you know, hookah, for example.
There's no way I'm gonna know what that is in Portuguese. I've not come across that.
(02:43):
And so because there are some specific words in here,
that are related to, you know, Arabic things, which I just had no idea on.
Or and and so even to someone's like lead, which is Chungbo,
which I'd kind of heard of before, but, you know, didn't really know. I could have gone directly to the other book,
to to get that translation, but I was like, no. I'll just use the the general translation tool.
(03:07):
When it came across to certain passages, which I thought, oh, that's interesting. I'd I'd wanna see how this is in English. Then I would go across and I would kind of read the 2 books side by side and, you know, they are they literally have the same cover art and things like this. So I was I was I had a fairly strong feeling that it would be a a good book to read a translation of because it's relatively simplistic.
(03:30):
This this book, if you've read The Alchemist before or heard of it, it's,
it's written in a style that I think, you know, children could get into and is very accessible for a lot of people.
Not complicated storyline, not complicated
emotions or actions going on. Very, very simplistic.
So what did I get, from reading these side by side? Well, the first you'll notice is minor stylistic changes.
(03:57):
So for example, does tempo
translate as weather
or as time? And, you know, it can kind of translate as both. Most of the time you would think that, tempo would be would be time.
The context for this was Santiago being grateful for his coat and that you need to be prepared for the surprises of x. Now,
(04:20):
So,
yeah, it could it could have also been like change as well.
So,
in this case, it was like the the change for be separate be prepared for the surprises of change.
And he kind of, you know, it's one of those ones where it's like, it doesn't really make a difference that much of whether it's,
(04:44):
time, weather change, you know, it doesn't really matter that much in this context where it's like, it's his coat. He just needs it for something that is going to happen.
You'll also be seeing things like Bocky Alberta versus amazed,
instead of open mouthed.
You know, the
English translation
(05:04):
was
amazed.
I had personally come across Boca Verda, which literally means mouth open.
I would have translated that as open mouth
instead of amazed, but, you know,
minor stylistic, who who really cares? Popcorn maker versus a baker, for example.
You know, it's
things like that. I don't think have any impact on the way the book is read or what actually happens within it. Travelling east versus travelling west technically
(05:33):
a difference, but does this really change the passage, the feel, the essence of what is going on? I would say no.
So one of the things you first started notice, I think, are these small ones.
But then you get to this other area where it's like, okay, you know, I'm starting to see changes, which I think actually
are points of note that the translator directly had to make a decision on and that actually do play an impact in
(05:59):
how the book comes across.
So for example,
there was this passage. This is the probably the most noticeable one that I saw was,
there's this passage in the Portuguese right near the start of the book where he was stating that his father, this this being Santiago, the main character, that his father tried to bury his desire
(06:21):
to travel with water, food and shelter.
And in the essence, saying that he wanted to do what Santiago was doing to
live out his personal dream, his personal legend,
but he intentionally
suppressed this down by,
you know,
kind of forcefully saying like, oh, I can't travel because I need I need to
(06:43):
create a house and a home for my wife. I need to
provide for her. And he was using this as an excuse for not following his personal legend. Whereas in the English, it implies that he had no choice but to suppress
his, his desire for travel
because he had these things.
You might think this is minor, but it I feel it plays into the actual point of the book, which is
(07:08):
one of the learnings you can take away from this book is,
okay,
you need to actively
be aware that there are going to be forces and things that will stop you from living out your personal legend, from following your true calling in life,
and
that some of these you can
use as excuses, which is what I think the,
(07:31):
the original Portuguese
portrayed better and is what this book is mostly about. Whereas the English version, I think, kind of had the cop out. It was saying he had no choice but to, whereas no, he actually did have the choice and he
they are very pressing and important reasons, but he chose to do it,
in spite of and, you know, he used them as an excuse almost to not live out his personal legend.
(07:56):
There's something like that, you know, it's it's still slightly nitpicking in the grand scheme of the things of the book.
If you'd look at this one passage, it probably doesn't. But I think multiple things like that
add up
to the sense of the book being
slightly different when you come out at the end of it. Whereas the things like tempo versus weather, you know, change
(08:19):
that those sort of things don't really matter when the actual sense
of the the passages change. That's when I think, okay. Yeah. This is probably where the translator
had an impact on this, whether it was good or bad. In this case, not very example, I would say is is a negative one. I can't think of any reason why
he would have altered it. In that case,
(08:41):
we go on to see other
sections where Santiago was saying he would help the Englishman if he could in the in the Portuguese. This being like,
I literally can't help you. There's nothing else I can do. Whereas,
and and it and it was like a more broader sense. He just didn't know how he could help.
(09:02):
Whereas in the English version, he's like, I would, but,
there's people might not know what an alchemist is like I did,
and he's got a much more direct impactful.
This is the reason why it was more of like a problem solving. So in this case, the intent of Santiago changes as well.
And his actions for doing or not doing certain things has changed.
(09:26):
So
I feel like
the changes in this has made the characters come out
looking slightly less
immaculate in a certain sense in
that both Santiago and his father, I think were
were more
pure in a or not pure. You they they had a bit bit of a depth of character more in the in the original Portuguese, whereas in the English translation,
(09:54):
they're kind of coming out looking a little bit smooth over their character.
They're less of a flawed human being
and more of a,
they're more dictated by the whims of of the universe.
This book very much is about the universe conspiring or not conspiring against you and your decision to
(10:15):
accept that or or not accept that. So
these 2 these two portions do play into the book. But
I would say the English has translated that in a in a way that's not helpful.
In a way that's particularly not helpful is when it just simply cuts out certain sections. So for example,
there was this
(10:36):
sentence where Santiago was talking about the Moors. So this being the the people from
over the over the seas from where he was in Spain and going into Africa,
and
he
or the Middle East and he talks about how, yeah, he's not a fan of them. He doesn't like them. In fact, he detest them,
and dropped words were pretty common. I'm really not sure why, you know, one section was they would always be his friends became they would be his friends.
(11:05):
Even in the preface,
something gets changed for no reason. It was talking about Oscar Wilde being the author
of this book, mysterious book or something, but the English version cuts this out. Those ones kind of just baffle me and baffle me. I'm
I'm not really sure why that happens. And in this case,
unless a really obvious reason is present,
(11:28):
I I don't see benefits for just cutting out certain words or or sentences
that were in the actual original.
Now, the the biggest difference
with translations and the art of translations is is not due to the translator themselves, but due to the actual languages. So
after reading this book,
(11:48):
these books, I would probably say that
all of the
changes that you'll notice from reading something in the original Portuguese
versus in the English,
95% of it is just due to the language differences themselves. So
the book length is a really good example of this. You're looking at the 2 here, and you're saying, oh, Karen, they're they're about the same length. What are you talking about? There's no there's no real differences. Well,
(12:14):
the original English,
what you will find in languages
is that there is
due just to the inherent nature of the language, the way certain words
are conjoined, such as in German, which makes text
by word count much smaller
or others, which, will split up certain words
(12:35):
or to have a word like what, what is
in in English becomes
in in Portuguese. So we see there's a an actual an actual additional word in there.
And this will blow out word count and make things different in that sense. So a we have a 102100 and so in general for Portuguese,
(12:57):
if you've got something written in English, then Portuguese will be 20% larger.
And then, you know, vice versa the way
that don't know what the math works out. It should be, like, 82%
or something like that if
in English versus if it's originally written in Portuguese.
So we have the original,
page count in the Portuguese being 206
(13:20):
pages in total.
And the English version, it gets us down to, like, 168, 170 ish.
This is also assisted by the actual formatting in the book. So I'm talking about the actual
page width, which goes from
9.5 centimeters in the Portuguese down to 9 in the English,
(13:41):
and then the 30 lines in the Portuguese down to 29. So
we can see that the actual word
spacing as well is much larger in the in the Portuguese,
which is assisting in this kind of blowout.
The probably biggest difference as well,
and this actually gets back into the translation and probably not even the translator themselves, but the copy editor. I'm not sure the person who actually describes this, but in the English version,
(14:14):
they don't really have a delineation
delineation of chapters so that it kind of just flows through as one big
total thing
in the Spanish is not in the Spanish. In the Portuguese, this is very different. It it has very delineated chapters and they occur very frequently,
where so you get this more feeling of
(14:36):
the short, sharp
delineation of periods in Santiago's life as he's going through his journey, whereas in the English, it feels like one much longer journey.
I personally actually enjoyed that aspect of it where in the English translation
where
it it feels like one continuous thing that goes on versus the Portuguese, which is like this happens and then mini stop break. You have to take, you know, the 2 seconds it takes for your eyes or one second or maybe even half a second to travel from the bottom of one page to the next or turn the page over.
(15:11):
So I think that actually
changes the feel of the book. And that's related more to the
there's no reason it needed to be like that. Portuguese
views is very much
a very similar structure to to English in terms of
the standards.
Usually there'll be like 4 sentences in a paragraph,
(15:32):
multiple paragraphs in a chapter,
ranging from, you know, depending on the book type. In this case, it being
1 to 3 pages usually.
One of the other probably big things in this was
just it takes a lot of mental energy
for the translation if you are not fluent. I'm not fluent in Portuguese.
(15:54):
It's okay. I can converse.
Wasn't as good as my Spanish got up to where I could speak
relatively
without thought and just be in the moment and engage in a conversation.
In Portuguese, I still need to, like, mentally go adjust. Okay. That's what this means. Okay. Yeah. That that's probably what this means.
(16:15):
Certain words, I'll still stumble over and have to go mentally.
Okay. What is tree out of it? Okay. Yeah. You know, this sort of thing. So
those are the probably the the biggest differences.
And from this, I would I found that the book didn't hit me as as hard
in the Portuguese
or with as much depth and meaning
(16:36):
as it does in the English version. So,
this is where it's like,
if you're reading, originals versus translations,
sure, there's a benefit to reading the original because you get more accurate, you know, word count or the you don't have to have those factors of,
(16:57):
the differences of word counts of translation
differences that the translator chose to do or whatnot, but you are sacrificing
comprehension and knowledge. And in this case, if I had to recommend someone of of my particular
level, which, jeez, if if I had to go through it, I'd I'd probably be like a 2 level, I think, in in terms
(17:19):
of skill, maybe
maybe crossing into the b one.
I I would recommend just reading your the translation into your native language, and you can really get a feel for that. So let's jump on to the next section. This is some indirect observations I've just gotten from general translations and extra notes.
So one of the things I tried reading last year was, 1,001
(17:43):
Nights.
The of,
Arabian Nights fame by I'm not sure who the author was that I thought it was just various unknown authors.
And I,
in particular,
had acquired a version, which was the Edward Lane boulderized version. And if you don't know what boulderized means,
it essentially means when it's it's intentionally
(18:06):
altered,
I believe,
for
to to make it more moral or to cut out bits which
are perhaps immoral or, or too spicy, something like that.
And
the I personally feel this is what the most egregious thing a translator can do when they intentionally
(18:26):
alter the purpose and meaning
for
ulterior motives
and when it's related to their own personal
morals.
So in the Arabian Nights, for example,
they though the 1,001 Nights,
he was cutting out or changing bits related to genies
(18:46):
related to how
Arabs would,
you know, family structures
were made
of relations between men and women of sexual related things.
Apparently, he was just
cutting stuff off left, right and center, altering things, changing things.
As soon as I learned that because I I read a little bit of the book and then I started digging into the actual version I had and that that's a straight up no for me. Like, no, no, no, no. I don't want a bolderized version. I don't want that. So whenever I come across that, I personally
(19:20):
stay very, very clear from it because I don't see any benefit for a translator to put their own morals onto a piece of work.
Next category
I'd put to do, I guess, like the copy editing and marketing process. And this is probably beyond the translator where
the translate up, they've they've, you know,
(19:41):
got a probably
a very decent grasp on both languages that they are
translating to slash from.
And
this is where they
will have done their translation perhaps to the best ability that they personally can, you know, hand the manuscript
off, like got the alchemist here. Alright. I've just translated into the alchemist. Here's the raw version handed off to a copy editor or to the, you know, book publishing company. And then everyone gets their little greedy fingers into the pies and changes a lot of things. So
(20:16):
this will typically be out of their control, I believe,
depending on the relationship of what contract they drew up with the with the
with the publishing company.
As far as I'm aware,
translators are not the, like,
most powerful of people when it comes to bargaining.
I because I think
(20:38):
the dare I say dime a dozen, you know, no, no translator has a renowned name for themselves,
at least in general public sphere, to be able
to command
a exclusive rights over the
copy editing process and marketing process of a book, for example. So this is where you'll you'll typically see that companies will do things like
(21:01):
altering
passages to not incur any
legal issues, whether that be related to
laws of the land, related to obscenity
of,
of sexual nature, of
perhaps even if you're translating
in a modern context to libel laws or things like that. So for example, the Karma Sutra book review I did recently,
(21:26):
the Richard Burton translation of that was was kind of tricky because
things like Yoni and Link Sam,
which he he kind of kept
were
were not accurate descriptions or the way that he portrayed
them in the book were not
as accurate as as how he could have done, which should have been relating to saying things like penis and vagina
(21:52):
or perhaps even cruder versions of those words that you could find in English.
But we have to remember this was published in
I want to say the 1800, maybe early 1900
of his version of the Karma Sutra.
And, you know, he took a lot of risks to publish that and the company did as well. So you kind of have to give them a little bit of leeway as at the same time because the book wouldn't even be published
(22:20):
if they hadn't made certain aspects change or perhaps it would have been published and immediately, you know, taken off the shelves due to libel laws or
or obscenity laws or things like that. So those ones I am kind of forgiving on. I still don't like corporate bureaucracy
interfering with my literature, but
(22:40):
I also accept that that
sometimes is the case. Because
I don't know how to create a book. I don't know how to bind paper onto I don't know how to operate
printing machines and things like that. So I'll take what I can get.
The next is what I would say is stylistic choices.
And I haven't read this version. So I will, you know, just caveat that. But one of the things that came up recently,
(23:07):
to my attention was Emily Wilson's translation of the The Odyssey.
This came from a listener, Cole Cole McCormick
of the of the show because he was
interested in a movie of
the Odyssey,
which
by
Odysseus's Odyssey,
(23:28):
by Homer, I believe. And
he
he was researching into it. And he found that there was a woke version of the book coming out,
or had been come out by written by Emily Wilson.
And,
you know, she she she's so worked that she changed things to,
you know, make men look bad and make women stronger or whatever it was.
(23:51):
I don't believe that's the case after diving into it a bit more. What I think was she made very intentional stylistic changes with her translation from
the ancient Greek, I guess,
which was she decided to write an iambic pentameter,
which is I believe the way that Homer wrote this originally or you you love,
(24:13):
Shakespeare is most renowned for for this
style of
of sentence formation, I guess, or or text formation. I honestly, I am big pentameter. I really have no idea how it's structured.
It's related to syllables and things like that.
But she wanted to keep the word length or the line length the same,
(24:35):
which was not
possible
without very severe alterations because
the amount of syllables in Greek versus in English, it's very much shortened
in in Greek and lengthened in English, which meant to keep the I am back pentameter. She just had to make
she had to like squish and mold and form a lot of things to fit her the style of the book she was reading and writing in. Hence why you would find certain passages where
(25:04):
it seemed very, very different from
other translations, which are perhaps more literal into the,
the way that it was
actually written,
or a more literal translation. Let's just leave it at that.
And so she had to make a lot of decisions.
(25:24):
She chose to do that. I think that's totally fine as long as you're upfront about it
and know going in,
hey, this is some of the things that I do. And so you'll typically see that in a translator's note.
And I think it's kind of my responsibility as the reader if there is a translation
to read the translator's note to see what decisions they were making because I personally find it rather fascinating
(25:49):
and it will give you an idea of like, okay, you know, she made these trade offs in this translation
because that's one thing
about
languages is direct translations.
If you if you're if you're trying to learn a language and you have any thoughts in your head or,
you know, if I would say probably 50%
(26:09):
having direct
type translation ideas in your head is good. More than that, you're gonna you're gonna have a problem. You're gonna have a bad time.
And you'll also things notice that, for example, in the doubting chain, I'll also leave a link to that in the show notes down below
where I in that book review where I talked about I had 2 translations of the same book. So this time it was different because I had 2 translations into English
(26:36):
and I could see very clearly how
it was completely different in certain passages.
One book staying more to the original,
doubting language
and actual words,
one being more in the spirit of it.
I personally actually enjoyed the book that was more in the spirit
of of the of the sense of the doubting because
(26:57):
I found the other one a rather dry and academic. So
there are times where you will read a book that has been translated
and it's not
to the utmost degree
directly translated, but you will find that you enjoy it more.
Now
are you losing meaning? Yes. You're making the trade off of meaning versus enjoyment. And
(27:21):
in a certain sense,
I got more meaning from the book because I enjoyed it more. So, you know, there was no trade off. Everything was better for me. But but, these are just things to to be aware of. So let's jump into the final section. Just a summary here.
I found that although
the grammar prompts some differences, the biggest effect was,
(27:44):
the
sorry. The the biggest effect was the actual grammar of the changes in languages between Portuguese
and English
with some minor effects by the stylistic
choices of the of the editor,
in in and these could be minor in the certain extent that I don't think they had any
(28:05):
change
and
minor ish where it was okay. It changed the,
intent of a character and
the the feel of the book was a little bit different. So,
you know, larger alterations, cutting out words, sentences. I didn't understand that. I'm not sure why also removing the racist
remarks of Santiago, even though, you know, he was just saying he just doesn't like the Moors. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
(28:32):
You know, translations in general are complex.
And
the
I think it's worthwhile if you're reading a translated book,
having a little look around at at just what kind of translations are are available
to you if if that's a thing.
Because there's and for certain classics, for example, you're gonna get multiple translations.
(28:56):
If it's a more modern book,
you know,
probably you can just choose whatever. It's it's not really gonna make that much of a difference, but particularly ones which have, like, scholarly
interpretations,
multiple. And if if it's written in especially old language,
that is really hard because
sometimes
(29:16):
you might need to learn Arabic
before you can then have a stab at learning
like an ancient dialect of Arabic.
And so
the the complexity level really notches up depending on the language that is being translated as well.
If it's got a common similar route like the Latin languages,
(29:37):
English, French,
Italian,
Spanish, Romanian,
they're they're gonna be a bit easier to translate from one to the other rather than to Ukrainian or to Japanese. So,
I don't do this personally for every book. You know, when there's Japanese books, you can't miss him or for example, I I just grab whatever. It's not gonna make that much of a difference
(30:00):
in in that case, but
there's certain ones where I will be a little bit more picky. So and I would encourage people to to have a think about that as well. So the art of the translation,
bloody damn difficult, complex and nuance. That's that's kind of my takeaway from reading these books.
Value for value. This is a value for value podcast. You are never gonna find advertising
(30:22):
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any place as well.
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(30:44):
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Talent telling someone about this and
giving me book recommendations
based on what you think
I would enjoy
(31:05):
or even
on special episodes like this.
You know, what are your thoughts on translations? Have you read a book in another language?
What were your observations? I would love to know these things.
And reaching out via any of our social media or leaving a comment is very much appreciated and helps
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(31:26):
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(31:51):
It'll explain what that is and and how one might do that.
What's coming up in some future episodes? Well, as usual, I'm live here on 11 am on a Wednesday
as always,
or as always for the immediate future,
next couple of months.
And
I have certain books coming up. I've finished The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton.
(32:15):
I have finished
the blue blue ocean strategy
by 2 people whose names I'm probably not gonna remember because it's honestly a bit of a forgettable book, but I'll still give you the the goss on the Blue Ocean strategy.
I am reading at the moment The Lucky Country by Donald Horne. That's about Australia. I'm
gonna read a book either The Gilded Age or the I think it's called The Price of Interest by Edward Chancellor because I enjoyed his Devil Take the Hindmists so much. I found another one of his,
(32:45):
and I'll be reading that.
One has 2 book reviews coming up as well, I believe. 1
about the 48 laws of power.
And I think you said the diary of a CEO.
Is that an actual book? I'm not sure.
Yeah. But something something related to that.
So plenty of stuff coming up on this channel.
Weekly
(33:07):
episodes released by me as usual, and then one with his special episodes coming out on the weekends.
Get excited, get keen.
And I really do hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are for in the world. Ciao for now. Kyron out. Bye.
How much meaning is lost when you are reading a translation?
Welcome everyone to another episode of the mere mortals book reviews live here on the 29th January 2025.
I'm your host, Kyrin. And as you surmise, this is the podcast where I read the same books over and over and over and over again and do the same reviews over and over and over again.
(00:28):
No. Okay. We don't do that. But I kinda am doing that today in a weird context because I am reading and doing a special episode of translations
related to my readings of these 2 books here, O Alquimista,
AKA The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
I have done a book review on this before, so, you know, basic stuff
was published in 1988.
(00:50):
The original, the translation I have here, I believe, was published in 1993.
It's 206 pages in length, or is it a 169?
We'll have to look into that. And it's probably about 3 hours reading in the
both Portuguese and English. I think it, probably a bit longer than the Portuguese, actually. Let let's say 5 hours.
(01:11):
So this episode is gonna go over my direct observations from reading a book in the original Portuguese
language versus in English and noticing any translation differences between the 2. I'll then go on to talk about just some interesting things you will find in translations
just in general, the art of translation, if you wanna put it, like that, that I've noticed over a couple of years related to other books that I've read in originals,
(01:38):
as well as just things that you might observe in in some of the books that I have not read,
particularly because of the way it was translated.
And then we'll just, finish off with just a little bit of a summary on
translation notes and things that might help you if you are,
going to read a book that's translated and you want certain aspects or don't want certain aspects.
(02:00):
So let's jump into the direct observations that I got from reading,
The Alchemist and UAlchemistah.
Now, as I mentioned, I've already done a book review of this, so link is down below.
And my general approach for this was to read
the the book, UAlchemistah,
in the original Portuguese
(02:22):
as much as I could just reading it through certain areas, I'd stumble upon a word here or there, which I didn't know.
And for this, I would just use a direct translating tool. Usually, it'd just be a verb, but sometimes it would be like, you know, hookah, for example.
There's no way I'm gonna know what that is in Portuguese. I've not come across that.
(02:43):
And so because there are some specific words in here,
that are related to, you know, Arabic things, which I just had no idea on.
Or and and so even to someone's like lead, which is Chungbo,
which I'd kind of heard of before, but, you know, didn't really know. I could have gone directly to the other book,
to to get that translation, but I was like, no. I'll just use the the general translation tool.
(03:07):
When it came across to certain passages, which I thought, oh, that's interesting. I'd I'd wanna see how this is in English. Then I would go across and I would kind of read the 2 books side by side and, you know, they are they literally have the same cover art and things like this. So I was I was I had a fairly strong feeling that it would be a a good book to read a translation of because it's relatively simplistic.
(03:30):
This this book, if you've read The Alchemist before or heard of it, it's,
it's written in a style that I think, you know, children could get into and is very accessible for a lot of people.
Not complicated storyline, not complicated
emotions or actions going on. Very, very simplistic.
So what did I get, from reading these side by side? Well, the first you'll notice is minor stylistic changes.
(03:57):
So for example, does tempo
translate as weather
or as time? And, you know, it can kind of translate as both. Most of the time you would think that, tempo would be would be time.
The context for this was Santiago being grateful for his coat and that you need to be prepared for the surprises of x. Now,
(04:20):
So,
yeah, it could it could have also been like change as well.
So,
in this case, it was like the the change for be separate be prepared for the surprises of change.
And he kind of, you know, it's one of those ones where it's like, it doesn't really make a difference that much of whether it's,
(04:44):
time, weather change, you know, it doesn't really matter that much in this context where it's like, it's his coat. He just needs it for something that is going to happen.
You'll also be seeing things like Bocky Alberta versus amazed,
instead of open mouthed.
You know, the
English translation
(05:04):
was
amazed.
I had personally come across Boca Verda, which literally means mouth open.
I would have translated that as open mouth
instead of amazed, but, you know,
minor stylistic, who who really cares? Popcorn maker versus a baker, for example.
You know, it's
things like that. I don't think have any impact on the way the book is read or what actually happens within it. Travelling east versus travelling west technically
(05:33):
a difference, but does this really change the passage, the feel, the essence of what is going on? I would say no.
So one of the things you first started notice, I think, are these small ones.
But then you get to this other area where it's like, okay, you know, I'm starting to see changes, which I think actually
are points of note that the translator directly had to make a decision on and that actually do play an impact in
(05:59):
how the book comes across.
So for example,
there was this passage. This is the probably the most noticeable one that I saw was,
there's this passage in the Portuguese right near the start of the book where he was stating that his father, this this being Santiago, the main character, that his father tried to bury his desire
(06:21):
to travel with water, food and shelter.
And in the essence, saying that he wanted to do what Santiago was doing to
live out his personal dream, his personal legend,
but he intentionally
suppressed this down by,
you know,
kind of forcefully saying like, oh, I can't travel because I need I need to
(06:43):
create a house and a home for my wife. I need to
provide for her. And he was using this as an excuse for not following his personal legend. Whereas in the English, it implies that he had no choice but to suppress
his, his desire for travel
because he had these things.
You might think this is minor, but it I feel it plays into the actual point of the book, which is
(07:08):
one of the learnings you can take away from this book is,
okay,
you need to actively
be aware that there are going to be forces and things that will stop you from living out your personal legend, from following your true calling in life,
and
that some of these you can
use as excuses, which is what I think the,
(07:31):
the original Portuguese
portrayed better and is what this book is mostly about. Whereas the English version, I think, kind of had the cop out. It was saying he had no choice but to, whereas no, he actually did have the choice and he
they are very pressing and important reasons, but he chose to do it,
in spite of and, you know, he used them as an excuse almost to not live out his personal legend.
(07:56):
There's something like that, you know, it's it's still slightly nitpicking in the grand scheme of the things of the book.
If you'd look at this one passage, it probably doesn't. But I think multiple things like that
add up
to the sense of the book being
slightly different when you come out at the end of it. Whereas the things like tempo versus weather, you know, change
(08:19):
that those sort of things don't really matter when the actual sense
of the the passages change. That's when I think, okay. Yeah. This is probably where the translator
had an impact on this, whether it was good or bad. In this case, not very example, I would say is is a negative one. I can't think of any reason why
he would have altered it. In that case,
(08:41):
we go on to see other
sections where Santiago was saying he would help the Englishman if he could in the in the Portuguese. This being like,
I literally can't help you. There's nothing else I can do. Whereas,
and and it and it was like a more broader sense. He just didn't know how he could help.
(09:02):
Whereas in the English version, he's like, I would, but,
there's people might not know what an alchemist is like I did,
and he's got a much more direct impactful.
This is the reason why it was more of like a problem solving. So in this case, the intent of Santiago changes as well.
And his actions for doing or not doing certain things has changed.
(09:26):
So
I feel like
the changes in this has made the characters come out
looking slightly less
immaculate in a certain sense in
that both Santiago and his father, I think were
were more
pure in a or not pure. You they they had a bit bit of a depth of character more in the in the original Portuguese, whereas in the English translation,
(09:54):
they're kind of coming out looking a little bit smooth over their character.
They're less of a flawed human being
and more of a,
they're more dictated by the whims of of the universe.
This book very much is about the universe conspiring or not conspiring against you and your decision to
(10:15):
accept that or or not accept that. So
these 2 these two portions do play into the book. But
I would say the English has translated that in a in a way that's not helpful.
In a way that's particularly not helpful is when it just simply cuts out certain sections. So for example,
there was this
(10:36):
sentence where Santiago was talking about the Moors. So this being the the people from
over the over the seas from where he was in Spain and going into Africa,
and
he
or the Middle East and he talks about how, yeah, he's not a fan of them. He doesn't like them. In fact, he detest them,
and dropped words were pretty common. I'm really not sure why, you know, one section was they would always be his friends became they would be his friends.
(11:05):
Even in the preface,
something gets changed for no reason. It was talking about Oscar Wilde being the author
of this book, mysterious book or something, but the English version cuts this out. Those ones kind of just baffle me and baffle me. I'm
I'm not really sure why that happens. And in this case,
unless a really obvious reason is present,
(11:28):
I I don't see benefits for just cutting out certain words or or sentences
that were in the actual original.
Now, the the biggest difference
with translations and the art of translations is is not due to the translator themselves, but due to the actual languages. So
after reading this book,
(11:48):
these books, I would probably say that
all of the
changes that you'll notice from reading something in the original Portuguese
versus in the English,
95% of it is just due to the language differences themselves. So
the book length is a really good example of this. You're looking at the 2 here, and you're saying, oh, Karen, they're they're about the same length. What are you talking about? There's no there's no real differences. Well,
(12:14):
the original English,
what you will find in languages
is that there is
due just to the inherent nature of the language, the way certain words
are conjoined, such as in German, which makes text
by word count much smaller
or others, which, will split up certain words
(12:35):
or to have a word like what, what is
in in English becomes
in in Portuguese. So we see there's a an actual an actual additional word in there.
And this will blow out word count and make things different in that sense. So a we have a 102100 and so in general for Portuguese,
(12:57):
if you've got something written in English, then Portuguese will be 20% larger.
And then, you know, vice versa the way
that don't know what the math works out. It should be, like, 82%
or something like that if
in English versus if it's originally written in Portuguese.
So we have the original,
page count in the Portuguese being 206
(13:20):
pages in total.
And the English version, it gets us down to, like, 168, 170 ish.
This is also assisted by the actual formatting in the book. So I'm talking about the actual
page width, which goes from
9.5 centimeters in the Portuguese down to 9 in the English,
(13:41):
and then the 30 lines in the Portuguese down to 29. So
we can see that the actual word
spacing as well is much larger in the in the Portuguese,
which is assisting in this kind of blowout.
The probably biggest difference as well,
and this actually gets back into the translation and probably not even the translator themselves, but the copy editor. I'm not sure the person who actually describes this, but in the English version,
(14:14):
they don't really have a delineation
delineation of chapters so that it kind of just flows through as one big
total thing
in the Spanish is not in the Spanish. In the Portuguese, this is very different. It it has very delineated chapters and they occur very frequently,
where so you get this more feeling of
(14:36):
the short, sharp
delineation of periods in Santiago's life as he's going through his journey, whereas in the English, it feels like one much longer journey.
I personally actually enjoyed that aspect of it where in the English translation
where
it it feels like one continuous thing that goes on versus the Portuguese, which is like this happens and then mini stop break. You have to take, you know, the 2 seconds it takes for your eyes or one second or maybe even half a second to travel from the bottom of one page to the next or turn the page over.
(15:11):
So I think that actually
changes the feel of the book. And that's related more to the
there's no reason it needed to be like that. Portuguese
views is very much
a very similar structure to to English in terms of
the standards.
Usually there'll be like 4 sentences in a paragraph,
(15:32):
multiple paragraphs in a chapter,
ranging from, you know, depending on the book type. In this case, it being
1 to 3 pages usually.
One of the other probably big things in this was
just it takes a lot of mental energy
for the translation if you are not fluent. I'm not fluent in Portuguese.
(15:54):
It's okay. I can converse.
Wasn't as good as my Spanish got up to where I could speak
relatively
without thought and just be in the moment and engage in a conversation.
In Portuguese, I still need to, like, mentally go adjust. Okay. That's what this means. Okay. Yeah. That that's probably what this means.
(16:15):
Certain words, I'll still stumble over and have to go mentally.
Okay. What is tree out of it? Okay. Yeah. You know, this sort of thing. So
those are the probably the the biggest differences.
And from this, I would I found that the book didn't hit me as as hard
in the Portuguese
or with as much depth and meaning
(16:36):
as it does in the English version. So,
this is where it's like,
if you're reading, originals versus translations,
sure, there's a benefit to reading the original because you get more accurate, you know, word count or the you don't have to have those factors of,
(16:57):
the differences of word counts of translation
differences that the translator chose to do or whatnot, but you are sacrificing
comprehension and knowledge. And in this case, if I had to recommend someone of of my particular
level, which, jeez, if if I had to go through it, I'd I'd probably be like a 2 level, I think, in in terms
(17:19):
of skill, maybe
maybe crossing into the b one.
I I would recommend just reading your the translation into your native language, and you can really get a feel for that. So let's jump on to the next section. This is some indirect observations I've just gotten from general translations and extra notes.
So one of the things I tried reading last year was, 1,001
(17:43):
Nights.
The of,
Arabian Nights fame by I'm not sure who the author was that I thought it was just various unknown authors.
And I,
in particular,
had acquired a version, which was the Edward Lane boulderized version. And if you don't know what boulderized means,
it essentially means when it's it's intentionally
(18:06):
altered,
I believe,
for
to to make it more moral or to cut out bits which
are perhaps immoral or, or too spicy, something like that.
And
the I personally feel this is what the most egregious thing a translator can do when they intentionally
(18:26):
alter the purpose and meaning
for
ulterior motives
and when it's related to their own personal
morals.
So in the Arabian Nights, for example,
they though the 1,001 Nights,
he was cutting out or changing bits related to genies
(18:46):
related to how
Arabs would,
you know, family structures
were made
of relations between men and women of sexual related things.
Apparently, he was just
cutting stuff off left, right and center, altering things, changing things.
As soon as I learned that because I I read a little bit of the book and then I started digging into the actual version I had and that that's a straight up no for me. Like, no, no, no, no. I don't want a bolderized version. I don't want that. So whenever I come across that, I personally
(19:20):
stay very, very clear from it because I don't see any benefit for a translator to put their own morals onto a piece of work.
Next category
I'd put to do, I guess, like the copy editing and marketing process. And this is probably beyond the translator where
the translate up, they've they've, you know,
(19:41):
got a probably
a very decent grasp on both languages that they are
translating to slash from.
And
this is where they
will have done their translation perhaps to the best ability that they personally can, you know, hand the manuscript
off, like got the alchemist here. Alright. I've just translated into the alchemist. Here's the raw version handed off to a copy editor or to the, you know, book publishing company. And then everyone gets their little greedy fingers into the pies and changes a lot of things. So
(20:16):
this will typically be out of their control, I believe,
depending on the relationship of what contract they drew up with the with the
with the publishing company.
As far as I'm aware,
translators are not the, like,
most powerful of people when it comes to bargaining.
I because I think
(20:38):
the dare I say dime a dozen, you know, no, no translator has a renowned name for themselves,
at least in general public sphere, to be able
to command
a exclusive rights over the
copy editing process and marketing process of a book, for example. So this is where you'll you'll typically see that companies will do things like
(21:01):
altering
passages to not incur any
legal issues, whether that be related to
laws of the land, related to obscenity
of,
of sexual nature, of
perhaps even if you're translating
in a modern context to libel laws or things like that. So for example, the Karma Sutra book review I did recently,
(21:26):
the Richard Burton translation of that was was kind of tricky because
things like Yoni and Link Sam,
which he he kind of kept
were
were not accurate descriptions or the way that he portrayed
them in the book were not
as accurate as as how he could have done, which should have been relating to saying things like penis and vagina
(21:52):
or perhaps even cruder versions of those words that you could find in English.
But we have to remember this was published in
I want to say the 1800, maybe early 1900
of his version of the Karma Sutra.
And, you know, he took a lot of risks to publish that and the company did as well. So you kind of have to give them a little bit of leeway as at the same time because the book wouldn't even be published
(22:20):
if they hadn't made certain aspects change or perhaps it would have been published and immediately, you know, taken off the shelves due to libel laws or
or obscenity laws or things like that. So those ones I am kind of forgiving on. I still don't like corporate bureaucracy
interfering with my literature, but
(22:40):
I also accept that that
sometimes is the case. Because
I don't know how to create a book. I don't know how to bind paper onto I don't know how to operate
printing machines and things like that. So I'll take what I can get.
The next is what I would say is stylistic choices.
And I haven't read this version. So I will, you know, just caveat that. But one of the things that came up recently,
(23:07):
to my attention was Emily Wilson's translation of the The Odyssey.
This came from a listener, Cole Cole McCormick
of the of the show because he was
interested in a movie of
the Odyssey,
which
by
Odysseus's Odyssey,
(23:28):
by Homer, I believe. And
he
he was researching into it. And he found that there was a woke version of the book coming out,
or had been come out by written by Emily Wilson.
And,
you know, she she she's so worked that she changed things to,
you know, make men look bad and make women stronger or whatever it was.
(23:51):
I don't believe that's the case after diving into it a bit more. What I think was she made very intentional stylistic changes with her translation from
the ancient Greek, I guess,
which was she decided to write an iambic pentameter,
which is I believe the way that Homer wrote this originally or you you love,
(24:13):
Shakespeare is most renowned for for this
style of
of sentence formation, I guess, or or text formation. I honestly, I am big pentameter. I really have no idea how it's structured.
It's related to syllables and things like that.
But she wanted to keep the word length or the line length the same,
(24:35):
which was not
possible
without very severe alterations because
the amount of syllables in Greek versus in English, it's very much shortened
in in Greek and lengthened in English, which meant to keep the I am back pentameter. She just had to make
she had to like squish and mold and form a lot of things to fit her the style of the book she was reading and writing in. Hence why you would find certain passages where
(25:04):
it seemed very, very different from
other translations, which are perhaps more literal into the,
the way that it was
actually written,
or a more literal translation. Let's just leave it at that.
And so she had to make a lot of decisions.
(25:24):
She chose to do that. I think that's totally fine as long as you're upfront about it
and know going in,
hey, this is some of the things that I do. And so you'll typically see that in a translator's note.
And I think it's kind of my responsibility as the reader if there is a translation
to read the translator's note to see what decisions they were making because I personally find it rather fascinating
(25:49):
and it will give you an idea of like, okay, you know, she made these trade offs in this translation
because that's one thing
about
languages is direct translations.
If you if you're if you're trying to learn a language and you have any thoughts in your head or,
you know, if I would say probably 50%
(26:09):
having direct
type translation ideas in your head is good. More than that, you're gonna you're gonna have a problem. You're gonna have a bad time.
And you'll also things notice that, for example, in the doubting chain, I'll also leave a link to that in the show notes down below
where I in that book review where I talked about I had 2 translations of the same book. So this time it was different because I had 2 translations into English
(26:36):
and I could see very clearly how
it was completely different in certain passages.
One book staying more to the original,
doubting language
and actual words,
one being more in the spirit of it.
I personally actually enjoyed the book that was more in the spirit
of of the of the sense of the doubting because
(26:57):
I found the other one a rather dry and academic. So
there are times where you will read a book that has been translated
and it's not
to the utmost degree
directly translated, but you will find that you enjoy it more.
Now
are you losing meaning? Yes. You're making the trade off of meaning versus enjoyment. And
(27:21):
in a certain sense,
I got more meaning from the book because I enjoyed it more. So, you know, there was no trade off. Everything was better for me. But but, these are just things to to be aware of. So let's jump into the final section. Just a summary here.
I found that although
the grammar prompts some differences, the biggest effect was,
(27:44):
the
sorry. The the biggest effect was the actual grammar of the changes in languages between Portuguese
and English
with some minor effects by the stylistic
choices of the of the editor,
in in and these could be minor in the certain extent that I don't think they had any
(28:05):
change
and
minor ish where it was okay. It changed the,
intent of a character and
the the feel of the book was a little bit different. So,
you know, larger alterations, cutting out words, sentences. I didn't understand that. I'm not sure why also removing the racist
remarks of Santiago, even though, you know, he was just saying he just doesn't like the Moors. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
(28:32):
You know, translations in general are complex.
And
the
I think it's worthwhile if you're reading a translated book,
having a little look around at at just what kind of translations are are available
to you if if that's a thing.
Because there's and for certain classics, for example, you're gonna get multiple translations.
(28:56):
If it's a more modern book,
you know,
probably you can just choose whatever. It's it's not really gonna make that much of a difference, but particularly ones which have, like, scholarly
interpretations,
multiple. And if if it's written in especially old language,
that is really hard because
sometimes
(29:16):
you might need to learn Arabic
before you can then have a stab at learning
like an ancient dialect of Arabic.
And so
the the complexity level really notches up depending on the language that is being translated as well.
If it's got a common similar route like the Latin languages,
(29:37):
English, French,
Italian,
Spanish, Romanian,
they're they're gonna be a bit easier to translate from one to the other rather than to Ukrainian or to Japanese. So,
I don't do this personally for every book. You know, when there's Japanese books, you can't miss him or for example, I I just grab whatever. It's not gonna make that much of a difference
(30:00):
in in that case, but
there's certain ones where I will be a little bit more picky. So and I would encourage people to to have a think about that as well. So the art of the translation,
bloody damn difficult, complex and nuance. That's that's kind of my takeaway from reading these books.
Value for value. This is a value for value podcast. You are never gonna find advertising
(30:22):
sponsorships nor things like that on this. I want this available anywhere, anytime, anyone for,
any place as well.
That does mean though that the all this value is is being provided upfront
and it can't continue without you providing some value in return.
Now you can do this multiple different ways and time, talent and treasure.
(30:44):
Time sharing this podcast with someone hidden like thing,
hidden the bell, you know, subbing to the channel
on the YouTube,
doing all those very similar things, on the audio version. It's very much appreciated.
Talent telling someone about this and
giving me book recommendations
based on what you think
I would enjoy
(31:05):
or even
on special episodes like this.
You know, what are your thoughts on translations? Have you read a book in another language?
What were your observations? I would love to know these things.
And reaching out via any of our social media or leaving a comment is very much appreciated and helps
helps this channel as well. And then finally, Treasure.
(31:26):
What value did you get from this? If,
if,
you had to pay for this, how much would you pay for it? And,
helping to support the show in a monetary form is very important as well. Because this does cost a lot of time, energy and effort on myself parts and one's part.
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(31:51):
It'll explain what that is and and how one might do that.
What's coming up in some future episodes? Well, as usual, I'm live here on 11 am on a Wednesday
as always,
or as always for the immediate future,
next couple of months.
And
I have certain books coming up. I've finished The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton.
(32:15):
I have finished
the blue blue ocean strategy
by 2 people whose names I'm probably not gonna remember because it's honestly a bit of a forgettable book, but I'll still give you the the goss on the Blue Ocean strategy.
I am reading at the moment The Lucky Country by Donald Horne. That's about Australia. I'm
gonna read a book either The Gilded Age or the I think it's called The Price of Interest by Edward Chancellor because I enjoyed his Devil Take the Hindmists so much. I found another one of his,
(32:45):
and I'll be reading that.
One has 2 book reviews coming up as well, I believe. 1
about the 48 laws of power.
And I think you said the diary of a CEO.
Is that an actual book? I'm not sure.
Yeah. But something something related to that.
So plenty of stuff coming up on this channel.
Weekly
(33:07):
episodes released by me as usual, and then one with his special episodes coming out on the weekends.
Get excited, get keen.
And I really do hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are for in the world. Ciao for now. Kyron out. Bye.
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