/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9058943]

How do I get over the mindset that reading a translation is not worth it? I feel like i'm getting the information second hand and that the translation has probably butchered the book.

[Anonymous No.9058944]

Have you tried killing yourself?

[Anonymous No.9058945]

>>9058944
Not yet

[Anonymous No.9058947]

>>9058945
I'm out of ideas. Good luck.

[Anonymous No.9058949]

>>9058947
Thanks for trying man.

[Anonymous No.9058952]

>>9058943
well, think of it this way.
do you know the original language?

[Anonymous No.9058956]

Monolingual people's problems.

Start learning languages and you'll soon realise that they're all really similar. Any idea can be expressed in any language in a roughly the same way.

[Anonymous No.9058957]

>>9058943
Translations don't butcher books, but a lot is lost. It's so much more rewarding being able to read other languages, and it requires much less effort than learning how to speak it—I can already read French and Italian pretty well, but my expression in them is atrocious.

[Anonymous No.9058961]

>>9058957
How long did french take? And how did you learn it?

[Anonymous No.9058963]

>>9058943
1/ Read the Dao De Jing
2/ Compare all available translations
3/ ????
4/ Profit

[Anonymous No.9058975]

>>9058943
Unless it's a new book, lots of books, especially classics, were translate by actual great writers in their own right.
The best ones are able to accurately rewrite what the original author did, conveying the tone along with the meaning.
There is no reason a translation should be lesser than an original work. Simply because the original is "original" that doesn't mean a translation couldn't read better, or be even more affecting than the original.
I'm not saying that's always the case, but there is no reason to disregard a well respected book just because it's a translation, when that translation itself is probably well respected, and well done, if you are hearing about it.
An original isn't inherently better than a translation.
And also, why judge the only option you have against an option you don't have. What are you going to do learn another language?

[Anonymous No.9058994]

>>9058975
Good post, thanks.

[Anonymous No.9059026]

Kill yourself you fucking idiot

[Anonymous No.9059071]

>>9059026
no u

[Anonymous No.9059082]

All books are just awkward translations of the authors thoughts and intentions

[Anonymous No.9059106]

>>9058943

>How do I get over the mindset that reading a translation is not worth it?

Understand that you think this without personally knowing Ancient Greek because you are really easy to meme on.

[Anonymous No.9059229]

>>9059082
excellent.
stay on /lit/, plz

[Anonymous No.9059534]

>>9059082
Woah

[Anonymous No.9059551]

>>9059082
Aight

[Anonymous No.9059590]

>>9059082
There's a quote somewhere in The Idiot where, I think, Myshkin says that no idea can ever fully be conveyed to another person, that a piece of it always stays with the thinker of it.

[Anonymous No.9059593]

>>9059590
Here it is, It's actually in Ippolit's letter:

Let me add to this that in every idea emanating from genius, or even in every serious human idea—born in the human brain—there always remains something—some sediment—which cannot be expressed to others, though one wrote volumes and lectured upon it for five-and-thirty years. There is always a something, a remnant, which will never come out from your brain, but will remain there with you, and you alone, for ever and ever, and you will die, perhaps, without having imparted what may be the very essence of your idea to a single living soul.