English translation of foreign-language books/movies

Tee   Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:25 pm GMT
How well are most foreign-language books and movies translated into English? Do the translated versions, on average, sound natural to native English speakers?

As an English learner, I am somewhat concerned about the possibility of picking up the kind of English that might sound weird or unidiomatic if I learn from those sources. Do you think my concern is justified?
Tee   Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:44 pm GMT
BTW, in my country, many books translated from English often contain phrases and constructions that don't sound natural in my native language. This is why I'm concerned this might be the same for English-language books that are translated from other languages.
Uriel   Sun Feb 12, 2006 11:45 pm GMT
I've read several books that were translated into English, and I think it depends largely on how good your translator is. Usually they don't try to translate word for word, but just capture the idea of what's being said; the best of them also try to capture mood and lyricism and have to not only be good linguists but good writers in order to do justice to their source material.

But I don't think I ever read any books that sounded awkward in English -- I'm thinking of books from Spanish like One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Death of Artemio Cruz, by the way.

I do know that there was a notation in the beginning of my copy of Dante's Inferno that mentioned that the rhymed triplets in the original Italian could not be reproduced successfully in English, because Italian simply has more words that rhyme. The translator for that edition had to settle for rhyming the first and third lines of each triplet only.
Guest   Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:03 am GMT
I would avoid translated books. It's best to read books originally written in the language you're learning because otherwise they will probably be influenced somehwat by the grammar/vocabulary of the original language.