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Translation opinions for book:

od philodice, 17 kwietnia 2011

Wpisy: 28

Język: English

philodice (Pokaż profil) 17 kwietnia 2011, 21:22:54

I want my book to be easy and fun to read.
If I can get my book translated, which I'm not picky about speed, I have a few options.

The first: Just straight Esperanto from beginning to end.

The second: EO and English trade off paragraph following paragraph so a beginner could read along easily, with glossary for uncommon/rare EO words at the end.

The third: Straight Esperanto with unusual or uncommon words in a glossary at the end of each chapter where they appear the first time, with the full text appearing in English in a separate half of the book.

Does anyone have other suggestions? (Aside from the fact that I need to learn Esperanto more quickly if this is to happen at all, or find help.)

razlem (Pokaż profil) 17 kwietnia 2011, 22:22:15

You can do Esperanto on the left page, and English on the right page. This is pretty common for books written in 2 languages.

3rdblade (Pokaż profil) 17 kwietnia 2011, 23:43:34

I'd think about who you intend this book for. I don't think you intend it for fluent Esperantistos, but rather learners or people who have a spark of interest in the language and have a need for something that will inspire them to learn more. The small sentences of faerie-speak in your English version would have had that effect on some people, I am sure, if they'd survived the Napoleonic invasion of your editors. Fantasy and sci-fi readers (i.e. your readers!) seem to be a little more open minded to new, odd things, like Esperanto. In fact, how many of us came to Esperanto through Red Dwarf or Stainless Steel Rat? (I didn't, but I am sure plenty did!)

So, I would suggest more or less what Razlem said, English on the verso and Esperanto on the recto. I'd also suggest a dozen or so charming colour pictures throughout, with captions from the EO text. I mention that because I was recently given a very attractive collection of Czech fables in EO (Valda Vinar's Ĉeĥaj Fabeloj, if you're interested) which does exactly that and really works well. Yep, and put a small glossary at the back, or under the EO if there's space, just like most modern printings of Shakespeare's plays do.

I'd also reckon you could chop it a bit, say 20-40%, partly because if it's aimed at learners, a giant, fat fantasy novel is not going to entice. When one is starting out, smaller goals are good. Iom post iom, as we say. Editing it again means more work for you, but less for the translator!

ceigered (Pokaż profil) 18 kwietnia 2011, 05:04:01

I voted the first two, since the 2nd is great for learners, but obviously you might want to just have it EO only for non-learners.

I've got a bilingual spanish bible around here somewhere, I found it really cool because you can look at the Spanish, the look over to the adjacent column and look at the English, and try and figure out what the Spanish was on about grammatically and how they word things (much more straightforward I found actually, but probably that's coz I'm not spanish and can't appreciate the mess of hidden meanings that go with every word in any language)

Miland (Pokaż profil) 18 kwietnia 2011, 11:59:39

philodice:Straight Esperanto with unusual or uncommon words in a glossary at the end of each chapter where they appear the first time, with the full text appearing in English in a separate half of the book.
If I were a beginner again, I think I would prefer this option.

NiteMirror (Pokaż profil) 18 kwietnia 2011, 19:08:27

razlem:You can do Esperanto on the left page, and English on the right page. This is pretty common for books written in 2 languages.
That would be my vote.

qwertz (Pokaż profil) 20 kwietnia 2011, 09:10:30

Calibre's help file mentions Sigil - A WYSIWYG ebook editor.

Could be recommended best practice to use Sigil to get media neutral Single Source Publishing EPUB source files. Calibre can export EPUB files very well.

philodice (Pokaż profil) 20 kwietnia 2011, 16:55:22

I could edit out some text to make it shorter, then publish it at a lower price. Say, 2.99 or 3.99?
At that price I'd have the text alternating Eng. and Eo. on facing pages or (in epub) one paragraph of each throughout.

erinja (Pokaż profil) 20 kwietnia 2011, 17:52:30

How long is your book in its current form?

philodice (Pokaż profil) 20 kwietnia 2011, 17:56:17

erinja:How long is your book in its current form?
A mere novella...50k words. Even the publisher said it was short.

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