Hozzászólások: 12
Nyelv: English
sudanglo (Profil megtekintése) 2015. május 18. 11:51:19
Nick, the issue of when to use compound tenses in Esperanto, and when to use simple ones (relying on context or additional words) is a little tricky.
I think that in the early days of Esperanto there was some overuse of compound tenses, whilst later authors and translators veered in the opposite direction shunning compound forms, with sometimes an attendant loss of clarity.
The compound tenses are of course never formally incorrect as they are part of Esperanto. But in some circumstances can come across as strange, not being how an experienced Esperantist would express himself.
So 'Mi estas venanta' (I am coming) not actually wrong, but the preferred form would be 'Mi venas'.
The important thing in translation is not to leave the reader floundering trying to work out what is going on. The best translations will as vividly create a picture of events in the reader's mind as in the original. Sometimes a too slavish rendering of the original form will fail in this respect, resulting at best in a rather flat text, or at worst requiring reference to the original to completely understand.
In short, the goal is to make the translation a 'good read', not to present the reader with some puzzle. And in that respect the translator should not hesitate to deviate from the original adding or subtracting material (a crime novel is not a legal contract).
The comment previously expressed about not bothering to express 'hairsplitting nuances' in the English verb system misses the point.
The implications of 'I had been trying to work out whether..' for the native speaker of English is that the man at the end of the corridor had been standing there for some time during which the 'I' of the novel had been observing him. This forms a certain image in the reader's mind.
A successful translation will convey the same image.
I think that in the early days of Esperanto there was some overuse of compound tenses, whilst later authors and translators veered in the opposite direction shunning compound forms, with sometimes an attendant loss of clarity.
The compound tenses are of course never formally incorrect as they are part of Esperanto. But in some circumstances can come across as strange, not being how an experienced Esperantist would express himself.
So 'Mi estas venanta' (I am coming) not actually wrong, but the preferred form would be 'Mi venas'.
The important thing in translation is not to leave the reader floundering trying to work out what is going on. The best translations will as vividly create a picture of events in the reader's mind as in the original. Sometimes a too slavish rendering of the original form will fail in this respect, resulting at best in a rather flat text, or at worst requiring reference to the original to completely understand.
In short, the goal is to make the translation a 'good read', not to present the reader with some puzzle. And in that respect the translator should not hesitate to deviate from the original adding or subtracting material (a crime novel is not a legal contract).
The comment previously expressed about not bothering to express 'hairsplitting nuances' in the English verb system misses the point.
The implications of 'I had been trying to work out whether..' for the native speaker of English is that the man at the end of the corridor had been standing there for some time during which the 'I' of the novel had been observing him. This forms a certain image in the reader's mind.
A successful translation will convey the same image.
sudanglo (Profil megtekintése) 2015. május 18. 12:23:03
I also thought 'la tria okazo ke tio okazis dum duona horo' sounded a bit clumsy, but wasn't sure whether I could shorten it to 'la tria okazo dum duona horo'The issue here Nick is not to do with 'ke' in the short form.
You should either use the accusative, e.g 'la trian fojon en duona horo', or a preposition 'por la tria fojo en ..'.
Though of course you can't drop the 'ke' if you are going introduce a subclause (eg tio okazis).
To preserve the nominative you would have to say 'Estis la tria fojo, ke tio okazis'