Why Is It Impossible To Translate A Book? - Walter Benjamin and the Task of the Translator

[@titatesta4577]

As a certified translator, Benjamin's essay is one of the most interesting approaches I've ever seen and that's why I'm writing my thesis about it applied to a comparison of several Spanish translations of Poe's short story William Wilson.

[@MrCamilaNasci]

Same! I'm thinking of doing my Final paper ab Machado de Assis being one of the first Poe translators

[@titatesta4577]

@@MrCamilaNasci That'd be really interesting! If you'd like, I can share with you my paper on William Wilson (bear in mind, the analysis is mainly in Spanish)

[@ariadne2270]

would you please help me with my paper, it's about Walter Benjamin's model. I'd be grateful!

[@naastyaaaaaaaaa]

In my country, the publishing industry of translated fiction is.. well, it leaves much to be desired. So much, in fact, that I began translating novellas for my Mom myself. And it was honestly a mindblowing experience, because, contrary to my expectations, the hardest part of translating a piece of fiction wasn't encountering unfamiliar words and trying to define their meaning, but adapting the text coherently while trying to maintain its pace, style and the overall.. well, 'vibe'. Before that, I never really thought about how the same word in a another language can mean a slightly different thing, which can mess with the style of the entire scene. It's like you said, even the word "Mama", written in the same way, can be perceived differently in another tongue. Translating is such an incredibly fascinating process!🖤

[@MsZsc]

this is why light novels in english are fucking obnoxious i guess

[@beccafrances31]

In fancy interpreter/translator speak the "vibe" would be called dynamic equivalence :)

[@naastyaaaaaaaaa]

@@beccafrances31 Yeah, that sounds really nice)

[@manojpandey7517]

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

[@CapensisBeluga]

true

[@mariherooriheram]

it`s fascinating how this year I entered the university where I will dig more deeply into English and other languages, as well as into "the skill of being a translator", and how I learn that the deeper knowledge of a language turns out to be less required, than the knowledge of stylistic features. it`s just every time I used to read a translated book I haven`t even thought about it, for me being in "a camp of purists" was the most right thing to do.

[@user-uu9fy6zo3i]

This video comes just when I start my “Translation and culture” classes. I read Benjamin’s essay a few days ago and your description helped even more. Keep going!

[@Crynok]

I've always looked at this as translation vs interpretation. There are so many situations where only a bilingual native of both languages (or someone of equivalent experience with the languages) would be able to accurately convey the original feeling orchestrated by the author to a native in the target language. Translation is not only limited by the number of equivalent words but also by the culture differences between the native speakers of the two. Also, in some cases the languages are fundamentally different where there is no way to just replace words and get coherent sentences, such as Japanese and English (which is why historically google translate has been so terrible at translating between them). This is also why, as a speaker of both Japanese and English, I'd gravitate towards Japanese translations for original works in Chinese or Korean, whereas I'd choose an English translation of works in German and Spanish. The reason being that I won't have to trust in the skill of the translator nearly as much as the languages are closer to each other and require significantly less interpretation.

[@darcyperkins7041]

But linguistically Japanese and Chinese are not really the same at their core.

[@frafraplanner9277]

Their vocabulary is very similar however@@darcyperkins7041

[@sidneyn1366]

I loved this video so much. Felt like a translation itself. You conveyed the feeling of importance and impact of a thoughtfully crafted translation.

[@taiko7225]

Great work here - and Waldun nails the difference between translation and interpretation.

[@archersworldofliterature]

Still remember reading that line for the first time and it still hits you so hard. Thanks for this first recommendation you gave me! I have fallen in love with Camus.

[@kaliland9296]

As someone who is doing her Master's in Translatology, I absolutely love this video. I think it's a great example of the concepts of "equivalence" vs. "adequateness" and the role they play in a "good" translation.

[@fuzzydunlop4513]

I just read The Stranger for the second time, alongside The Myth of Sisyphus for a presentation. I like the direction you're going for in this video (but Freud is always invited if Maman is at the party 😉)

[@0MissNemo0]

What an amazing video. I experienced this first hand when I was talking about Oscar Wilde 's The Importance of being Earnest (I'm a native Spanish speaker) with people who read the translation. The word earnest in Spanish doesn't carry the same double meaning like it does in English so the WHOLE POINT OF THE PLAY IS LOST. I found a new translation where the name was changed and they went "oh! Now I get it!"

[@kardelen3504]

Every upload feels like a holiday and I've only been around for a few weeks! Thank you so much for this video because I found myself nodding furiously and laughing in relief at some of the ways that you describes translation. My bachelors dissertation involved translating a Turkish short story collection - I got stuck on the title! It was wonderful! I also got lucky enough to take a translation module in final year and so much of what I learned and explored fed the translation and essay writing process. It felt transformative. Feels good to find digestible and interesting videos by someone who loves words and all that can be done with them

[@sophiaisabelle027]

We appreciate your for sharing your personal insights and advices on this channel. May God bless you always.

[@SeanPFarley]

This video is so helpful. I'm in a grad level Literature in Translation class and one of the pieces comes from Benjamin. Which, for me, a little dense - but still thoroughly engaging. I use videos to supplement my understanding and this one hit the spot. Thank you.

[@zhisu2665]

I used to read Russian literature translated and talk to one of my friends who speaks Russian natively, she'd read the original and we'd compare.

[@clr395]

this essay of walter benjamin is one of my favourites! (along with unpacking my library). i was born close to where walter benjamin died. I feel like around here people feel an affinity to him. his books are sold a lot and have been translated for a long time. i wonder if it's because we feel we should have saved him and we could not do it. we have a beautiful memorial in the town where he died, with a beautiful, beautiful view of the mediterranean. it's probably not enough, but in the point we are now, now that we are already late, it's all we have and all we can give, our beautiful blue sea.

[@ellakonga]

I think this might be my favorite KZbin video in general so far.

[@Kevin-dt8rk]

As a translator-to-be thank you for this video :)

[@fudgyboo]

Since reading Ward's translation of The Stranger in highschool I've been so interested in the role of the translator and in translation in general. The thought of how each language, in all its complexities (grammatical and societal), is capable of creating an inimitable tone or mood makes me wish I could understand them all. No better time to start learning than now, I suppose haha :)

[@Mondomonk]

As an example many sayings that we use can not directly translate. In english we say "all clouds have a silver lining" but if your were to translate that directly into other languages, word by word, most native speakers of that tranlation would have to guess at what it actually means. I would say that the saying tries to explain that some good can come even from bad experiences.

[@putsomerespeckonmaname540]

I'm late to replying to this video but if you see my comment PLEASE read Babel by R.F. Kuang. it's actually the book that brought me to your video. Very similar questions being asked. And the writing/plot/characters are phenomenal.

[@c__fragments]

Your video just came out when I was finished reading "The task of the translator"! But not only did I enjoy this selfish contingency, but also appreciated, as usual, your insight, the aesthetic work done with the video, and the case study of "The Stranger". Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

[@tomasoliveira4465]

This is true, the things you feel change if you fuly understand the language. Im from portugal, and i read "The stranger"(Camus) and "notes from the underground"(Dostoiévski) translated into portuguese, I liked the books, but it was kind of a drag to read them. I also read "Essay on blindness"(José Saramago) and "Posthumous memories of Brás Cubas" ( Machado de Assis) (Portuguese authors) and the enjoyment of the books was totaly diferent. I didn't had to drag trough some parts of the book, because, in the part that I was not liking, there was the language and it's beauty/meaning, and I would read it just for the sake of poetry, till I got engaged in the book again. Therefore, good video.

[@jenniferkate7167]

this was a fantastic video! keep up the good work robin

[@cccrit]

I always wished i had time to learn many languages for this exact reason

[@sad_hedgehog]

12:07 have to butt in here: in pointing out that bad translations of literature exist, give some credit to the terror of translation in the modern economy. i think *usually* the uncomprehensibility is the result of not getting enough time to do quality over quantity - and only *then* it's the fact that people translate just to translate. but thank you tho!! it's an incredible topic to analyse.

[@chicherannah]

I love Japanese culture because of anime, but fell in love with Japan because of it's language. I'm learning Japanese thru analyzing songs (that i love) lyrics and it honestly hits different!

[@adelszabo4284]

As someone currently studying art history this conflict reminds me a lot of the issues of iconography, which in layman's terms could be called the language of images, the way of analysing or even just describing art by identifying objects as certain things we know from traits that we recognise. A figure like Jesus might be recognised by the crucifix for example. But here lies the problem I think is similar to translating language. To people who aren't close to the culture, in this case Christians, however, this understanding is far from close at hand. Art can mean many different things depending on what the identity, the culture of the person who looks at it is.

[@leiasmith3305]

Super interesting! I have been struggling with this in my search for a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.

[@sharon1046]

Love the camerawork and the editing!!

[@EyeLean5280]

Shooing away Freud made me laugh!

[@iterumm]

this can be amplified in poetry, i’ve found. trying to convey devices like rhyming with languages that don’t rhyme in the same way is incredibly difficult! i have a hard time even translating *my own poetry*!

[@m.b.8429]

Thank you for the vid. Would be really helpful to put a link to your other vids on Han that you mention. Struggling to find the one on the Scent of Time.

[@RCWaldun]

It’s called: why does time speed up in the digital age?

[@pinxied_]

This essay reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend last year. I don't remember how we got there, probably just one of the many rants I can do when I'm very comfortable with someone, but it was about translations affecting our experiences with simply *reading* certain things. We're both from latinamerica, and so our native languague is spanish. We were talking about how, maybe, reading some Shakespeare for school didn't really feel *that* hard to us compared with the way we've seen northamerican people treat it. But the difference relies in the fact that what we had to read was a translation that was made... what? 100 years ago? maybe 200? And while language changes and evolves, that's still fairly recent and at the age we might look up into Shakespeare we probably would've already read spanish stuff from 1800s or 1900s already. Meanwhile, you guys are stuck with the original plays written back in 1500. I also guess that it most be a similar experience for, let's say, Don Quixote. You probably read a translation that's fairly recent, too. Meanwhile we read it's original late 16th/early 17th century spanish (which even has more obvious traces of a connection with portuguese, so, lots of fun). And yet of course neither of those writings will feel the exact same in other than their original languagues (though I believe plays are meant to be watched first or at least somewhat simultaniously, but anyways)

[@PoemsAreHistory]

Does anyone else end up buying the same book over and over with different translations? I’ve got Fitzgerald’s Odyssey for nostalgia, Lattimore’s Odyssey for accuracy, and Fagles’ Odyssey for kicks 😅

[@meddahi3194]

The quality of your videos improved insanely

[@RCWaldun]

Now I’m going to focus on quality over quantity. :)

[@meddahi3194]

@@RCWaldun we trust you Robin

[@skaq7294]

I have always been a big reader since i was young, always enjoyed it. But I suddenly had an epiphany while doing my german homework when i was 14 and realising a word translated from german to french (my language) didn’t have the same implications and half of it was « lost in translation ». The staggering realisation that i was missing out on the original content of the books i was reading started my journey through languages and particularly reading in other languages. My language goal is always to be able to read books in their original language.

[@litexplorer]

And to think of the fact that the essay you read itself is a translation!

[@RCWaldun]

Inception…

[@anysinhaa]

thank you, i'm reading this author's work for school and i couldn't grasp a single thing he said.

[@RCWaldun]

Benjamin’s a tough one to tackle for sure, but he’s such a valuable thinker if you spend enough time with him.

[@floramew]

As someone who never managed to understand Spanish itself cognitively, only ever understanding it after translating each word into English in my head, I can't imagine learning another language well enough that I could actually comprehend what I'm reading. I guess it's also useful to note that I can listen to & understand what someone is saying, *or* I can take notes, writing down what seems to be the Important Bits, but I can't do both at once.

[@Yesica1993]

I think the hearing/speaking and writing/reading skills are all a bit different, so it's possible to be better at some of them than others. I'm not sure if it's that different parts of the brain are involved or what. I wish I'd studied linguistics! It's fascinating. I do know that if you're wanting to be fluent, you have to get to the point where you're thinking in that language, not mentally translating back & forth. (At least, for speaking.) Unfortunately, I don't think there's any trick or shortcut, just constant practice and repetition.

[@douglasthedougjordan5573]

I was at that exact bookstore earlier today!

[@karelvorster7414]

I'm a native speaker of French and an avid reader of both French and English literature and I don't see the point about Maman. It means mother or mom and that's that. Let the reader interpret the word as he wishes. Some people are bent on finding unheard of meanings in perfectly common words. And what is the result of all that exercise in intellectual subtlety? A mere borrowing from the original language or some kind of so-called "literal" translation, ie the standard translation of the word as found in authoritative dictionaries. I mean, who doesn't see the impostor behind the translator here? If only he had found something original! But no, here he is, proud of his laziness, which he hides behind a screen of latinates. Users of "anglicismes" in French are the same: they claim the English words they use out of pure vanity or suivisme have such subtle meanings that obviously no French equivalent will do.

[@eshitadagal3122]

this video just reminded me of some tiktoks that people posted about the english dub of squid game. this stands for both dub and sub but, the tiktoks were about how the tone and the underlying information that a tone carries about a particular character, it's not communicated effectively when you translate it to another language. And like you said, if you translate sentences in isolation, it can interfere with the subject matter as a whole.

[@rlrihards948]

I can't explain how much I hate when there are multiple languages in one book without at least a translation or explanation.

[@pineapplefrog9652]

Have you read 'Babel: or the Necessaity of Violence: an Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution' by R.F. Kuang? It dives deep into the issues u raise in this video and does so in a very entertaining and interesting way. (It does, however, also talk about issues such as colonisim, imperialism, revolution e.tc) it was a really good read, I think you might like it. You should totally check it out.

[@RCWaldun]

It’s definitely on my list. 👌🏻

[@TerryStewart32]

@@RCWaldun George Steiner is also an authority on the subject of translation which you should read

[@raddestnerd]

Loved this video 🎉

[@Mev6]

I loved this video thank you !!

[@domingo-osabel]

👋Hi! I'm a new subscriber here, from the Philippines. I consumed your contents for one and a half months now. And I would like to thank you for your all inspiring and academically aesthetic videos. They help me a lot to continue my aspiration to be a writer (as I'm also currently writing my first book). I found the courage to pen this first comment of mine ever to all of your videos because I can say that my current reading status is highly related to this content. In 2023, I'm planning to spend my 6 months reading Fyodor Doestoevsky, I'm planning to start Crime And Punishment. The translation I bought is from the Penguin Classics by Oliver Ready, published in 2014. This is also the one recommended by the renowned Clinical Psychologist, Jordan Peterson, who endorses this book a lot. I would like to kindly ask if this translation is good? Or is there a better one? Thank you very much. And so glad to stumble on your channel, R.C. Waldun.

[@thehoodieguy1341]

bloopers were real funny that. youtuber relatables.

[@victorantoniocalderon3396]

Muy pegajosos, dramáticos e informativos. I really like your videos meinen Freund.

[@alenescoblete5540]

Excellent video!

[@vasundharabaidya5912]

I read the same book but it was called "The outsider" can someone explain why the Titles changed?

[@ryansisters1]

Hey! I was wondering if you have a discord, or some kind of community outside of youtube for book clubs, general discussions, just hanging out talking. It would be so cool if we could do that!

[@AltaroRitmerZaxmer]

With the development of machine translation, people who don't master foreign languages can also read foreign books by using translation machine like Immersive Translate or Google Translate.

[@Character-media]

What is the name of the sound background

[@timramm6680]

The extent to which language is a barrier can be seen, for example, in the case of Benjamin's sometime lover Anna Lacis. Lacis' barrier is exemplified by what she is called in Western discourse. There, as for example on Wikipedia, she is not called by her birth name but by her nickname "Asja". In the last decades of dealing with her, it has been consistently pretended that this woman's name was Asja and not Anna, because there is no understanding of Russian/Latvian naming in the West. Susan Ingram's work on her is worth looking at if anyone wants to study this notoriously underexposed person.

[@hansolo989]

What do you think of Strauss’ argument, that the only way we can understand the ancients is by understanding how they view themselves, and the only way to do is is original language, therefore direct translation is essential?

[@gotpedra4274]

Hello Robin, do you think that become a book translator is a good option? I've heard there a very few opportunities and a lot of competivity.

[@AHMAaAD1210]

amazing video

[@borissanchez3880]

I loves this video, but for some reason I feel I just watch a 16min long add for lingoda 😅😅

[@sebastianm.popken7723]

Hello!!! Do you advice always to read the book or essay in the original language or the translation despite it's not your "mother" language? In my case is with philosophy. I want to read german authors, but I´m waiting until I "master" in a certain way the language so I can read the original version. Also, it´s partly because the mistrust I have with translations. Is it accurate? Does it express the message the author wanted to give? Thank you for all the videos, greetings from Argentina.

[@omistatua]

Concerning the translation of the first line of 'The Stranger' by Camus, I remember as a French student, in my English translation class dealing with three different translated works about this line; and I was really disconcerted by the amount of subtilities that may be examined or not by the translator, and it was very tough ! but also at the same time it was really stimulating to deal with translation work, we often don't get it how hard it can be. And I particularly agree that reading in the original version is of course the best thing to do!

[@Yesica1993]

The only other language I'm familiar with is Spanish. I agree that languages have their own words/shades of meaning, expressions, etc. that are difficult to translate. But I do think we can't go to the extreme where we say it's impossible to properly translate anything, ever. No one would ever be able to communicate at all. All of that said, I wonder if the best solution would be to read a word-for-word translation first, even if it's clunky or some expressions don't make sense. Then, find a translation that better conveys those ideas in the other language. That sure would be time consuming and I don't know if I even would have the motivation to go through that double work! But maybe that would be the most effective way to get the most out of it.

[@MissMaupassant]

A bad translation can ruin a good book. Really interesting and underapriciated topic.

[@aditiroy678]

Not Freud being over enthusiast when it comes to closeness with mother.💀

working in a institution that focus on indigenous lenguages, i belive that every time we pass information from uno to another yu are doing in fact an interpretation, maybe it´s impossible for a translator to be objective.... we are no uncle Ben. That´s because all the cultural bagage we have and goes into interpretation of everty word we know.

[@karelvorster7414]

Translators and readers should make their final peace with the idea that a translation is an original work, a complete text in its own right. Chapman's translation of the Iliad is a British epic work based on a Greek story. Period. Translators are writers, not parrots.

[@finnh7483]

What I do not like is when translators change or omit cultural points to make it more understandable/appropriate for another culture to read. Reading translated books is a way to experience another culture and this disrupts this.

[@jennyoshea1958]

One of the worst translation of any book is, 'Death in Venice' by Thomas Mann. I have yet to find a decent translation which is a travesty to literature, to say the least.

[@connorwilliamson3]

Oh God, I’m not quite at the point of learning languages to properly read literature. I wish I were one of those.

[@EyeLean5280]

5:14

[@jennyrapacz9396]

The funny thing is I speak French, and work at a Translation and Interpretation company, while living in a country that speaks mostly English. It is very interesting how things are translated to convey what is intended and how sometimes literally translating words for words does not work because certain ways of saying things just cant be literally translated but needs to be taken in context to know how to properly translate. :-)

[@ammaribrahim5756]

I recently searched about how to translate Arabic poems to english...but realized its impossible job even for prof. Interpreters

[@oz_jones]

It is still worthwhile in my opinion - it for example will further your own understanding of both languages and the poem itself and it also will make said poems more accessible for people who don't know Arabic.

[@AirKhan45]

It looks like you have a charlie chaplin stache in the thumbnail!

[@RCWaldun]

My best attempt at embodying Uncle Benjamin. 👌🏻

[@lindaabraham8715]

I am interested in learning German, only to be able to read works of the German Exilliteratur (authors who fled Nazi Germany) in the original. I have several novels and memoirs in both the original and translated. Even with my pathetic level of German, by comparing the two it is obvious that the translation is lacking the author's import. For example, in Lion Feuchtwanger's "Der Teufel in Frankreich (The Devil in France)", on the first page in the original German, he expresses great antipathy toward his gaolers who have incarcerated him for nonsensical reasons and forced him (an author past middle-age) to perform hard physical labor just to keep him busy. The translator does not get this point across. Maybe he was in a hurry to meet a deadline, or maybe he did not get the point himself, or maybe it would have been impossible in English to express the author's point so concisely.

[@imiikhan]

❤❤❤

[@greenheaven6004]

out of context, but do you crack the spine when reading?

[@1michelmarques]

I am a translator. The translation with "maman" is horrible in my opinion. There is one thing important: unmarked language, that is, natural language, should not be translated to marked language. You always lose something, but adding something that no one would ever say and most readers wouldn't even understand is ridiculous.

[@AndersBjornTH]

Your narrative was destroyed by mid-roll ads

[@Yesica1993]

Adblock!

[@user-bm1zk9qj6p]

I refuse to read translations, I read everything in its original language even if I don’t speak it. I have read the entirety of Les Miserables in French, Divine Comedy in Italian, Dom Quijote in Spanish and Brothers Karamazov in Russian without understanding a single word.

[@karelvorster7414]

Using Maman rather than Mom conveys those notions of apathy and despair only in the mind of the translator, sorry. For most English readers using the French word will just appear as "couleur locale". So much for being more Camuesque than Camus.

[@tastybroccoli671]

There's no limit in translation. The main problem is that most translators tend to think their headcanon is more "right".

[@Ahqeter]

Self-indulgent, self-promoting rubbish.