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Post by kyc on Jan 6, 2022 8:34:58 GMT
I realized that the official Legend of the Condor Heroes translation is complete. The last installment, A Heart Divided, was released in March 2021. The co-translator of this volume is Shelly Bryant, based in Singapore. Maybe they will release a box set of all four volumes soon. The series sold well I think, and I hope they are working their socks off translating ROCH. Now that they have three translators, translating one epic novel every 4 years doesn't seem impossible anymore. I think I have been too harsh on the translation in the past. The only thing I think they did excessively was to overedit the translation, water down the style and make it more palatable to English readers. There are minor mistranslations but these can easily be corrected in a later edition. So where is the first English translation of Liang Yusheng?
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Post by texture on Jan 12, 2022 6:52:02 GMT
This will never happen, but what I want is the following. An academic translation with footnotes elaborating on the history, the culture, the translation, differences between editions, etc. Use the 2nd edition versions of the novels. None of the awful naming conventions used in these official translations. Lotus Huang, Mercy Mu, screw all of that. I hate this so much. I want my Huang Rong and Mu Nianci. I cannot read these translations because of this awful choice. I might have had some other wishes too, but don't recall them right now.
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Post by kyc on Jan 12, 2022 8:16:59 GMT
This will never happen, but what I want is the following. An academic translation with footnotes elaborating on the history, the culture, the translation, differences between editions, etc. Use the 2nd edition versions of the novels. None of the awful naming conventions used in these official translations. Lotus Huang, Mercy Mu, screw all of that. I hate this so much. I want my Huang Rong and Mu Nianci. I cannot read these translations because of this awful choice. I might have had some other wishes too, but don't recall them right now. True, but the ideal translation may never come by. Academic translations are expensive, and even Graham Earnshaw and John Minford have differences in translation philosophies. And some things won't bother native English speakers so much because they never know Chinese in the first place. JY's novels are so long, they need dedicated publishers and (multiple) translators. LOCH took 4 years to complete and they were just testing the water. The best translator of JY I have read is Graham Earnshaw and he did this not for the money. But even his translation is slightly abridged. Since The Deer and the Cauldron is supposedly JY's best novel (for academics anyway), I don't think Oxford University Press will put in more money to translate more JY. The case with LYS, Wang Dulu and GL is much simpler. Their novels are usually far shorter and for GL, there will be a ready market if they find a good translator. If The Godfather was a bestseller and Meteor, Butterflies, Sword was inspired by it, surely GL will find readers in the West? He's quite easy and addictive to read and not much of a gamble. His style is also more modern and influenced stylistically by American writers. Unfortunately, the translation of The Eleventh Son got a lukewarm response.
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Post by texture on Jan 12, 2022 8:29:18 GMT
kyc I basically agree with what you said. I'd be satisfied enough if the Holmwood, Chang, Bryant translations just did not use their awful naming conventions. I know that my first two wishes, an academic translation and using the 2nd edition, won't happen.
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Post by atumiwa on Jan 12, 2022 12:59:58 GMT
i like the translation of the eleventh son, Rebecca Tai keeps the pinyin name. yeah Graham Earnshaw translation for the book and the sword is also good too, but he trimmed too much, from the original 19 chapter to 9 chapter? john minford's The deer and the cauldron... meh... i cannot finish reading the first book, then switch to fans translation version on spcnet, haha
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Post by kyc on Jan 12, 2022 17:07:07 GMT
i like the translation of the eleventh son, Rebecca Tai keeps the pinyin name. yeah Graham Earnshaw translation for the book and the sword is also good too, but he trimmed too much, from the original 19 chapter to 9 chapter? john minford's The deer and the cauldron... meh... i cannot finish reading the first book, then switch to fans translation version on spcnet, haha The Rebecca Tai translation is very good. Graham Earnshaw's translation was abridged to begin with. He removed the subplots if I am not wrong. This was done after consultation with JY. He then released the translation on the Internet for a few years. Oxford University Press liked it, so John Minford and Rachel May (Minford's wife) were asked to edit it and they abridged the translation further I believe. And the chapter divisions were completely changed. Earnshaw's translation, though good, doesn't attempt to translate the chapter headings. All the chapter headings make up one long Chinese poem and they rhyme. Earnshaw did not agree with Minford's decision to embellish The Deer and the Cauldron. He felt it was not what a translator should do. He himself only abridged the translation, not try to "make it better".
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Post by atumiwa on Jan 13, 2022 7:32:52 GMT
wow, i just knew there are difference between physical book and online translation version of the the book and the sword. i read the book version, looks like i need to hunt the online version and re-read again
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Post by kyc on Jan 13, 2022 10:41:06 GMT
wow, i just knew there are difference between physical book and online translation version of the the book and the sword. i read the book version, looks like i need to hunt the online version and re-read again Don't know if you can find it. Earnshaw removed it after the official publication.
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Post by machete on Jan 13, 2022 11:15:47 GMT
i like the translation of the eleventh son, Rebecca Tai keeps the pinyin name. yeah Graham Earnshaw translation for the book and the sword is also good too, but he trimmed too much, from the original 19 chapter to 9 chapter? john minford's The deer and the cauldron... meh... i cannot finish reading the first book, then switch to fans translation version on spcnet, haha The Rebecca Tai translation is very good. Graham Earnshaw's translation was abridged to begin with. He removed the subplots if I am not wrong. This was done after consultation with JY. He then released the translation on the Internet for a few years. Oxford University Press liked it, so John Minford and Rachel May (Minford's wife) were asked to edit it and they abridged the translation further I believe. And the chapter divisions were completely changed. Earnshaw's translation, though good, doesn't attempt to translate the chapter headings. All the chapter headings make up one long Chinese poem and they rhyme. Earnshaw did not agree with Minford's decision to embellish The Deer and the Cauldron. He felt it was not what a translator should do. He himself only abridged the translation, not try to "make it better". The translated big book versions of The Deer and the Cauldron renamed Fa Kuat Ming Jeong(Bone-melting palm,dunno the Mandarin name) as Soft Style Karate if I'm not mistaken. Actually I really hope I was mistaken since it was such a weird renaming and I would rather stick to a more accurate translation/renaming.
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Post by atumiwa on Jan 14, 2022 4:14:12 GMT
wow, i just knew there are difference between physical book and online translation version of the the book and the sword. i read the book version, looks like i need to hunt the online version and re-read again Don't know if you can find it. Earnshaw removed it after the official publication. found it. www.jyjh.cn/jinyong/both are same 9 chapters in total, i havent checked further yet
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Post by kyc on Jan 14, 2022 6:17:09 GMT
The translated big book versions of The Deer and the Cauldron renamed Fa Kuat Ming Jeong(Bone-melting palm,dunno the Mandarin name) as Soft Style Karate if I'm not mistaken. Actually I really hope I was mistaken since it was such a weird renaming and I would rather stick to a more accurate translation/renaming. So did Kangxi defeat Oboi with Hard Style Taekwondo? atumiwa said: found it. www.jyjh.cn/jinyong/both are same 9 chapters in total, i havent checked further yet Actually, I am not 100% sure John Minford did much abridgement, if any. It was just my impression since OUP wanted to squeeze the translation into a book. But it looks like Earnshaw's original translation was really like only 60% of the original.
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Post by atumiwa on Jan 14, 2022 11:03:39 GMT
at least abridged version is still better than nothing. finding someone to translate sword stained with royal blood, the last Jin Yong's book which never been translated to english, is frustating. once i asked a translator service to translated SSRB, and he/she ask a translation fee about $800 it's far out of my budget league
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Post by kyc on Jan 14, 2022 13:02:17 GMT
at least abridged version is still better than nothing. finding someone to translate sword stained with royal blood, the last Jin Yong's book which never been translated to english, is frustating. once i asked a translator service to translated SSRB, and he/she ask a translation fee about $800 it's far out of my budget league Is this not translated into Bahasa Indonesia? Which JY novels are not translated into Indonesian? I thought they even translated the fake Gu Longs too.
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Post by machete on Jan 14, 2022 13:09:36 GMT
at least abridged version is still better than nothing. finding someone to translate sword stained with royal blood, the last Jin Yong's book which never been translated to english, is frustating. once i asked a translator service to translated SSRB, and he/she ask a translation fee about $800 it's far out of my budget league Is this not translated into Bahasa Indonesia? Oh sorry. I reread the translation by John Minford .After rereading I will provide one the paragraphs here.It's Soft Crush Karate not Soft Style Karate.
'"Suicide" is not the word I would use, ' said the old eunuch. 'What do you mean?' : 'Lady Zhen wasn't forced to commit suicide, she was killed, ' said the old eunuch. 'I asked the undertaker who prepared her corpse for burial. When they put her in the coffin, there were multiple fractures in every bone in her body. Even her skull was in pieces. Soft Crush karate is what they call the art of killing people
in that way, isn't it?' 'How would I know?' said the Empress Dowager. 'From what I've heard, ' said the old eunuch, 'a person who has been attacked by a skilled practitioner of Soft Crush karate will afterwards show no sign of injury anywhere on their body, yet in the course of a year or so their entire bone structure will disintegrate.
I think in terms of SSRB,the story may be too unpopular to be translated into other different languages.
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Post by kyc on Jan 14, 2022 13:20:52 GMT
Is this not translated into Bahasa Indonesia? Oh sorry. I reread the translation by John Minford .After rereading I will provide one the paragraphs here.It's Soft Crush Karate not Soft Style Karate.
'"Suicide" is not the word I would use, ' said the old eunuch. 'What do you mean?' : 'Lady Zhen wasn't forced to commit suicide, she was killed, ' said the old eunuch. 'I asked the undertaker who prepared her corpse for burial. When they put her in the coffin, there were multiple fractures in every bone in her body. Even her skull was in pieces. Soft Crush karate is what they call the art of killing people
in that way, isn't it?' 'How would I know?' said the Empress Dowager. 'From what I've heard, ' said the old eunuch, 'a person who has been attacked by a skilled practitioner of Soft Crush karate will afterwards show no sign of injury anywhere on their body, yet in the course of a year or so their entire bone structure will disintegrate.
I think in terms of SSRB,the story may be too unpopular to be translated into other different languages.
Karate and soft crush are like oxymoron. I think karate is hard external skill and huagu palm an internal skill that just dissolves the bones. JY fans are very loyal people, even after reading the original they still buy the translation, lol. I agree SSRB is on the boring side.
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