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Maintain source formatting in historical text translation?
Thread poster: Sarah Schneider
Sarah Schneider United States Local time: 19:57 Member (2015) Italian to English
Jul 21, 2020
I'm reviewing an IT>EN translation of a book written in the early 1900s. The translation has tried to respect the line breaks of the original book (which I think was in a rather small format) but this ruins the flow of reading it and seems rather awkward. I do not have much experience with historical texts, so I'm wondering if I can simply reformat the paragraphs to fill the whole page (left to right margins) instead of breaking every 8-10 words or so? Are there certain rules To respect wh... See more
I'm reviewing an IT>EN translation of a book written in the early 1900s. The translation has tried to respect the line breaks of the original book (which I think was in a rather small format) but this ruins the flow of reading it and seems rather awkward. I do not have much experience with historical texts, so I'm wondering if I can simply reformat the paragraphs to fill the whole page (left to right margins) instead of breaking every 8-10 words or so? Are there certain rules To respect when translating historical texts? Any advice? Thanks in advance! ▲ Collapse
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Samuel Murray Netherlands Local time: 04:57 Member (2006) English to Afrikaans + ...
@Sarah
Jul 21, 2020
Sarah Schneider wrote: The translation has tried to respect the line breaks of the original book...
If it is a client requirement that the translation uses the same number of characters per line as the original, then that is fine, but it is something that must be done at the very end of the process. During the initial translation process, there is no need to add such line breaks, and it may be easier for revisers to review it if it doesn't use those line breaks. Does the translator expect of you to reformat your edited version also, so that the number of characters per line are respected in the version that you deliver to the translator, or is it the translator's task to ensure that the lines are formatted correctly in the final version?
Tina Vonhof (X)
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Sarah Schneider United States Local time: 19:57 Member (2015) Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
No client requirements
Jul 21, 2020
Hi Samuel and thanks for your response.
The translation was done line for line, which certainly has made it easier for me to revise the work. But the end client is mostly using this translation of a 120 year old book for personal use and isn't sure whether to have the final translation correspond line by line to the original book (having no knowledge whatsoever of the source language) or to have it flow more smoothly and read like an actual book. I'm opting towards the second and po... See more
Hi Samuel and thanks for your response.
The translation was done line for line, which certainly has made it easier for me to revise the work. But the end client is mostly using this translation of a 120 year old book for personal use and isn't sure whether to have the final translation correspond line by line to the original book (having no knowledge whatsoever of the source language) or to have it flow more smoothly and read like an actual book. I'm opting towards the second and posted here because I have no idea what the standard practice is for these types of translations. ▲ Collapse
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Kay Denney France Local time: 04:57 French to English
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Jul 23, 2020
Sarah Schneider wrote: (client) isn't sure whether to have the final translation correspond line by line to the original book (having no knowledge whatsoever of the source language) or to have it flow more smoothly and read like an actual book.
I'm really not sure what having the translation correspond line by line would achieve if the client can't even compare with the original. I'm pretty sure the translation would be incredibly stilted if you had to do that.
Show him a couple of pages with the line-by-line presentation, and the same but written normally, he'll soon understand what he wants, because your smooth prose will be irresistible!
If he's aiming to write an analysis of this work, he might just need to be able to refer to the page number of the original, in which case you might try to keep to a page-by-page layout, but line-by-line would be exhausting to have to stick to.
Christine Andersen
Sarah Schneider
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