Another thing which is worth mentioning is that generally, in any creative field, limitations placed on the creator will inspire creativity. Having no boundaries sounds good on paper but it's actually daunting. Strict constraints can work wonders. The effect of a perceived limitation, i.e. 'use simple forms when possible', on an esperantist writer of novels may be to find new and creative ways of expressing a concept that hadn't been considered before. Human beings love to come up with creative solutions to things.

Of course the longer verb forms are there to be used as well.

Meanwhile, I think it's time to post Sro. Auld's translation of that passage, to see how the master handled it.

Your wish is my command 3rdBlade.

Unfortunately, whether it is a misprint or not I don't know, he starts off rather bizarrely, putting the 'riski' in the present which thows you off for the smooth understanding the whole first sentence.

Auld, in this case, religiously avoids the use of 'int', and there are other examples in the book where he does this with the -us form.

Estis neverŝajne, ke ŝi riskas diri, ke ŝi ne iris al Baskervila Halo, se ŝi vere iris tien, ĉar kabrioleto necesus por veturigo ŝin tien, kaj ne povus reveni al Kum-Tresio (Coombe Tracey) ĝis frua mateno. Tia ekskurso ne estus kaŝebla

My own effort would be :

Ne ŝajnis kredinde, ke ŝi riskus diri, ke ŝi ne vizitis Baskervil-Halon, se ŝi estus irinta tien, ĉar por tia ekskurso necesus kabrioleto kaj ŝi ne estus povinta reveni al Coombe Tracey antaŭ frumateno. Tio ne pasus sen rimarko.

I find it interesting how Auld manages to avoid the conditional in the first part, yet through the "se" still creates a conditional sentence. I feel like because of this a distinction (subtly) has been made, but I can't put my finger on it.

Has anybody got the German or Spanish version of this book and can post this text with comment on the verb forms?

You will find the passage in chapter 11 about 4 pages in.

Ceiger, I don't know what Auld was trying to do (if it is not a misprint) putting the idea of 'daring to say' in the indicative.

Neither the French nor any of the contributions so far have seen this as appropriate.

Sudanglo, seems you made a slight mistake with your translation from the French:

Sudanglo's version:

"It didn't seem likely that she would have dared to tell me that she had been to Baskerville Hall, if she hadn't actually gone there. She would have had to taken a gig (kabrioleto) there, and would not have got back to Coombe Tracey until the early morning. Such an excursion would not have gone un-noticed."

The actual text from the original English (according to what I found on the Internet):

"It was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been to Baskerville Hall if she really had been, for a trap would be necessary to take her there, and could not have returned to Coombe Tracey until the
early hours of the morning. Such an excursion could not be kept secret."

Perhaps this will help us better understand Auld's translation?

Sudanglo, did you fiddle with the Auld translation to match your English one? "se ŝi vere NE iris tien"??!

sudanglo:...Estis neverŝajne, ke ŝi riskas diri, ke ŝi ne iris al Baskervila Halo, se ŝi vere ne iris tien, ĉar kabrioleto necesus por veturigo ŝin tien, kaj ne povus reveni al Kum-Tresio (Coombe Tracey) ĝis frua mateno. Tia ekskurso ne estus kaŝebla

My own effort would be :

Ne ŝajnis kredinde, ke ŝi riskus diri, ke ŝi vizitis Baskervil-Halon, se ŝi ne estus irinta tien, ĉar por tia ekskurso necesus kabrioleto kaj ŝi ne estus povinta reveni al Coombe Tracey antaŭ frumateno. Tio ne pasus sen rimarko.

Now this is fascinating. Sudanglo, I love your translation--I think you rendered it quite well.

In looking at Auld's translation, I'm seeing something curious here. Reverse translating the very first part back into English (with my own comments in parentheses), this is what I come up with:

"It seemed unlikely (I LOVE the way he rendered that) that she takes the risk to say (PRESENT tense here? Odd...) that she
DIDN'T go to Baskerville Hall (I thought she was saying she went...), if she really didn't go there."

This seems to be the opposite of what we were translating. I realize that Auld was a master at this sort of thing, but perhaps he missed something here? Or am I missing something?

Secondly, I am starting to really see how the economy of grammatical complexity has a lot to recommend it. The longer I am involved with Esperanto, the more I see the stylistic wisdom behind using simpler verb constructs where they express essentially the same information, yet possibly at the expense of fanatical grammatical exactitude. If the intent behind "I had thought that they would have gone" can be expressed by "I thought they already went", then a clearer and more concise rendering without the grammatical "clutter" seems more natural.

Finally, I just want to say that I LOVE doing this. I wish an entire course were constructed around these kinds of exercises (I.E., making translations, comparing them, kicking them around, discussing the grammatical points that come out of them). I'd also like to see us work a few in the opposite direction--taking good Esperanto writings and finding ways to render them into idiomatic English--also attempting to get the proper register of vocabulary and appropriate level of precision in grammar--that would be a terrific way to learn. Thank you for coming up with this idea, and let's keep doing it!

Thank you for your kind comments Polaris.

It seems that I may have not got my 'nots' in the right place to match up with the English original and the Auld and French translations.

But the translation problem is essentially the same as an exercise in tenses.

Hopefully, I have now edited my Auld post correctly.

Polaris:I wish an entire course were constructed around these kinds of exercises ..

You are in luck, because such courses have been published. I recommend William Auld's Traduku!, and there's also F.R. Banham's A translation course in Esperanto for advanced students. Both appear to be in print.

I back-translated the first part of Auld's translation to this: It was unlikely that she (had) dared to say that she did not go to Baskerville Hall if she had really gone there.

For that kind of sentence in English, the tenses always match up, which is why I changed the tenses to 'dared' and 'went'.

In the Doyle passage, what actually happened was that the woman says to Watson, "I did not go to Baskerville Hall." I think the Auld translation uses the present tense for the same reason. The 'would' comes in because Watson is imagining a situation in which she had dared to tell him a lie, and is turning it around in his head.