Words, Words, Words 11: The Translation Cinematic Universe
Young Heretics
Spencer Klavan
4.9 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2024
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When it comes to picking a translation, which brands can you trust? Like streaming services and video game consoles, publishers are always competing for eyeballs, which means no one imprint is going to be able to gather all the best authors and translators under one roof. But here are some good rules of thumb to help you understand the lay of the land when it comes to choosing a translation or series of translations, so you always know what you're getting yourself into.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Young Heretics and to Words, Words, our translation series. |
| 0:05.0 | Today I want to introduce you to the translation cinematic universe. question over sub-stack dims that I think is going to pull me down to earth and get me doing a little bit of shop talk. |
| 0:28.0 | Enough of this fancy high-folutin hoidy- toidy translation talk about the abstract nature of language |
| 0:36.9 | and our existence has created beings let's talk shop let's talk about not just how to pick any individual translation, but how to pick a publisher of translations. |
| 0:50.3 | If you're on the go, you don't have a lot of time to rifle through various different translators, |
| 0:55.0 | you're not familiar with the various names that might or might not be good to go to. |
| 0:59.0 | How can you pick a good name of a publisher or a series that might be trustworthy? So here's the |
| 1:05.6 | question. It's from Kevin and he says, dear Spencer, I have a question about translations |
| 1:10.7 | that comes at the question of good translations in a different way. translations that are |
| 1:17.0 | are a part of the questions that are a part of various collections, |
| 1:21.7 | like the Every man's library. |
| 1:23.6 | Is there any guidance on which collections give the best translation? |
| 1:28.7 | Basically, what I'm wondering is if I don't have the background or time |
| 1:31.3 | to compare translations, which I don't, is there a good rule of thumb like when in doubt go with the |
| 1:37.1 | every man library edition or avoid the Canterbury classics or something like that |
| 1:41.5 | that a layman can use to not be as overwhelmed |
| 1:45.2 | when trying to read Beowulf, any of the sagas, |
| 1:48.0 | or something a bit more modern, like Crime and Punishment. |
| 1:51.4 | So I love this idea as a cheat code. I love the thought of it and I feel like it should work. I wish it worked a little bit better. I wish I could be more definitive about a particular |
| 2:06.2 | publisher or a particular series. And I feel here kind of like how you always feel there should be just one video game system that you have to buy |
| 2:16.0 | and then be able to play all the games you want to play. |
| 2:19.7 | You always feel like you should be able to just download one streaming platform and be okay with that, |
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