S03E07: Xanna Reddingius "Translation is automatically an adaptation"

And have there been any instances, especially with The Catch or Pak 'm, um, where you thought you had a good translation or it w- it was looking nice, and then you looked at how you would read it out loud or how it sounded, and you were like, "No.

Actually, you know what? This sounded nice on paper," but when reading it out loud or in, when in actuality, it just doesn't really work in that way? Or were you already so into the text that it kind of started flowing nicely anyway?

Um, well, first of all, it is called The Chase, not The Catch.

[laughs] I do remember that the spread that I struggled with the most is one that I have now translated in the end as In het water, op het water, wat een kabaal.

Wat zie ik daar? Eruit allemaal! But I don't remember [laughs] what my first translation for it was.

I just ...

I do remember that that was one where I was like, in the English text it was about, like, in the water, on the water, wild and free, and then it was something about like, "Do you hear that noise? Come and see," or something.

I don't really remember, but it was really hard to fit in because there were three things happening, and it was foreshadowing the next spread, where they reach, like, a big waterfall, and that was quite difficult to fit.

And then there is one spread where we did discuss it because the dogs go down fire escape, and in the English text, it just says, "Down, down, down, down." Like, it repeats like five times with an exclamation mark.

And we did translate that as omlaag, which does not read as well out loud as down.

Like, "Down, down, down, down." "Omlaag, omlaag, omlaag, omlaag." But I did want to use it, and then it returns another time in the book, the down, down, down, and then in that instance, I translated it to there, there, there.

So that was kind of like the compromise that this one time we chose the meaning over the sound, and then the other one we changed the meaning slightly to give it a nicer sound.

I like this kind of balance idea between trying to balance both meaning and the way it was originally written and what works in, in the, in the target language, in this case, in Dutch.

And I think it's a very nice example also of kind of using creativity and balancing this kind of, this idea of both languages equally to make sure that the text retains its features while also making sure it works in Dutch.

And in general, what do you think are the main difficulties you encounter when translating or working on a translation? Are these the kinds of things, or are there also other things you happen to come across?

You know, even as an editor, this is something that you think about and that you have to think about, but I do think about this and also because I edit translations, and then sometimes for some books, I haven't read, or actually I prefer to not have read the original text.

And sometimes it's in a language that I don't know how to read, so I can't read the original.

But then when I'm editing the text, I come across a sentence where I'm like, "Oh, I don't like this sentence," and then it's like, okay, but is it close to the original? Would I just maybe not have liked [laughs] the original sentence because I'm not editing, you know, the original work.

Editing a translation is something- Very different.

Yeah, the balance, and that is something that I also still find interesting in that you have to rediscover every time and kind of reinvent.

And it's interesting also to notice that it, it differs slightly for what kind of book it is.

Like I talked about with rhyming, if you want something to rhyme, you're gonna have to change the sentence structure.

But also, we did a book about, like, art history for kids, which were very small bursts of text, and then we also did one about the Ig Nobel Prize, which is like the Nobel Prize for silly scientific discoveries, which is really fun.

And then you think about, okay, what is the purpose of this book? And it is, you know, transfer of information in as efficient a way as possible, and for those kind of books, I think that the work that the author has done already is in the research and in writing the text, but more in the transfer of information.

So I think in a book like that, it's more important to honor that than to honor the exact words that they use, whereas with fiction, I would be much more inclined to hold fast to, you know, specific wordings rather than with nonfiction because the transfer of information is the most important thing.