[Eric]

Literary translation is alive and kicking in Estonia. Here's a quick translation of a newspaper article covering a recent meeting for new translators, principally talking about comments and suggestions by the translator Krista Kaer who works as an editor at a publishing house, but has also, with her daughter, translated all the Harry Potter books into Estonian. Practice makes perfect. Maybe there are few really new or controversial points, but it does show that there are people out there that think about the mechanics, as opposed to the thory, of translation:

Learning how to translate should be done by translating

14th November 2008, Mari Klein, Eesti Päevaleht [daily]

The Estonian Publishers’ Association in conjunction with the Cultural Endowment Fund invites Estonian translators to undergo the same training


The fact that such training is necessary was shown by the completely full hall and the fact that the course was full within the space of a few weeks.

"People are talking all the time about how badly books are translated. But nothing is done to improve the situation. We thought that if no one else will do it we’d have to do it ourselves," said one of the initiative-takers, the translator and critic Kätlin Kaldmaa, from the Eesti Päevaleht publishing house.

In Kaldmaa’s words, the large amount of interest expressed is obviously caused by the fact that 90% of literature appearing in Estonia is translated literature, so that there is more work than translators, and the quality of translation varies considerably. It is rumoured that even secondary school pupils are offered translations.

The most interesting talk from the point of view of literary translators was given by Krista Kaer, a talk which was full of examples that sent the hall into gales of laughter.

Kaer stressed the fact that you have to have your heart in the work you translate and you have to enter the text you translate and live with it for several months. If the work is not suitable for the translator, the translation too will suffer.

"For literary translation you needn’t use your imagination. I have seen texts where imagination has been used and believe you methey make pretty interesting reading. But they bear no relation to the original." Kaer noted. She mentioned that there are two types of translator who are not on the right road: the ones that try to add to the plot and those that try to abridge the text.

It is possible to translate the same text in several different ways, said Kaer, translations which may only have a few words in common.
Kaer stressed that in an ideal situation, you should do not work on your translation for several weeks, anything up to a month, before going through it again in a new light.

The principal faults involve translating idiomatic words and phrases too literally.

Although the [publisher’s] editor is the right-hand man of the translator, someone who must find all the translator’s shortcomings and mistakes, it does happen that the editor has understood the text wrongly in one way, the translator in another...

She added that elsewhere in the world the editor is a very rare occurrence. For example, literary agent took quite some persuading as to the meaning of the term "editing", as Pratchett did not need editing, according to the agent.

"In my opinion, editors will constantly be needed in Estonia, and this situation will not change for some time to come," Kaer affirmed. And she added that when the translator adopts a certain regognisable style, the editor should remain "invisible". The editor must know the original language in which the work is written, and help make the text a supple one.
The saddest thing, according to Kaer, is when errors in translation begin to affect our home-grown use of the Estonian language. She has received on her publisher’s desk several examples of manuscripts that look like raw translations.

Krista Kaer’s examples:


** Madam you are barking under the wrong tree (following the English idiom - but not quite right, and it doesn’t exist in Estonian).
** I stepped into the Orthodox church where the minister was saying mass. (No free-church clergymen in the Russian Orthodox Church.)
** The sun was shining and the birds singing. A beautiful spring. (But the translator had interpreted it as the bouncy type of "bo-oi-i-nggg" spring!)
** I went upstairs and changed. (But in the werewolf metamorphosis sense.)
** I got there quickly on account of my CD. (A "Corps diplomatique" plate is not a compact disk!)

Krista Kaer’s suggestions:


** The translator ought to be clear about the topic of the book, whether it be music or Middle Ages.
** The translator should translate maps, tables, captions, dedications and acknowledgements and check concepts and terms.
** One dialect should not be replaced by another. For instance, Yorkshire dialect with that of Vtrumaa. But if a character does speak dialect, it should be marked, by, for instance a few concrete words.
** Always check names, which tend to be different in English. For instance, Aesop should become Aisopos; Bavaria, Baierimaa.
** The translator should also check phrases in third languages.
** You don’t have to translate quotations and poems yourself. If a version exists, use it.
** In fantasy fiction you should not translate names as a rule. If you really need to, use a footnote to explain.
** Nevertheless, footnotes are not to be recommended in literature.
** The translation should be into adequate Estonian. A high level of language should not be exchanged for idiosyncratic usage.
** The translator must put in the corrections made by the editor himself or herself. Only then will he or she see their faults.

Translated from the Estonian by Eric, 20th November 2008

Source: Tõlkijaks saab õppida ainult ise tõlkides - Eesti Pevaleht

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Maybe you can argue with some of Kaer's points. But she does at least think about the problems in an active way. I wonder how much training there is in the UK or USA for specifically literary translators.

For me, the news was that 90% (!) of books published in Estonia are translations (as opposed to 3% in the UK and USA). Estonia only has one million or so potential readers of literature and non-fiction in the Estonian language, but there is still a huge appetite to catch up, even more than 15 years after Estonia left the Soviet Union, where censorship and book quotas were rife.