4 ms·

Unfortunately, works of one of my favorite writers - and ones that people on HN would appreciate - aren't translated into English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi

Unfortunately, works of one of my favorite writers - and ones that people on HN would appreciate - aren't translated into English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel

Tade0 5y ago
To quote another author whose work was also never translated(Jarosław Grzędowicz): "Native English speakers generally don't accept translations done by anyone who's not a native English speaker as well. Unfortunately there are very few native English speakers who are at the same time experts in Polish, and it so happens that all four of them are currently busy fulfilling their careers as lumberjacks".
- gweinberg 5y ago
  Given the rather large number of Polish Americans, I would think finding people who are fluent in English and Polish wouldn't be all that hard.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
    It takes the cultural back-and-forth for that work out, along with a few other factors. Most Polonia (as we call Polish-Americans) are firmly set in the US and usually don’t get higher education in Poland. This means that while they understand the language, they don’t really “get” the temperament and are losing a grip on the culture. I say this from personal experience and upbringing. Polonia also tend to be working-class. As a dilettante/temp Polish/English translator I would also say it really requires a very specific mix of values and circumstances. To pull off a quality translation of a piece of literature one has to put almost as much energy into it as it takes to write to begin with. It’s a huge undertaking, with not that big a payoff and it requires specific values, commitment and education. I’m surprised such people exist, really.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    To add to the sibling comment: I was born abroad myself and I often feel that I lack cultural context. I also have friends and relatives who grew up abroad and while their Polish is perfect in terms of grammar and pronunciation, they use almost no idioms.
  - p_l 5y ago
    The kind of fluency needed to translate doesn't come with memetically bad "Polonia" polish (even if it's a bit of exaggeration). Especially with works that use polish language to its fullest (like Lem) or reference culture and events that are local (infamous example was the first Witcher game, but also Witcher novels - the english translation of the game was much, much weaker content than the polish original which requires familiarity with polish politics 2000-2007). So you need a combo of american poet, fluent polish linguist, and possibly historian and/or anthropologist. Tall order. Sometimes it can be smoothed over by adding considerable appendices (something that accompanied first releases of Harry Potter in Polish, for example, explaining untranslatable puns and reasons for translating things in specific way) but again, not a trivial thing to do.
- getoj 5y ago
  >Native English speakers generally don't accept translations done by anyone who's not a native English speaker as well Is it common practice in Poland (or anywhere else) for people to translate from their native language into another language? I have personally never heard of commercial translations being done by non-natives in any language, but I'd be very interested to learn about such a place.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    > Is it common practice in Poland (or anywhere else) for people to translate from their native language into another language? I would say it's uncommon, but I think that after some digging I could maybe find a few examples of self-published work translated to English by the author. Off the top of my head I can only think of examples of books translated into Esperanto, but I assume this doesn't count. Historically Joseph Conrad was a Polish native speaker, but wrote exclusively in English so there's that.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  Cute, but completely preposterous. Vast numbers of Polish people speak perfect English, including my husband. It’s probably just not commercially interesting to translate and market.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    Of course this was said in jest. He just didn't think his work would do well commercially if translated.

Tade0 5y ago

To quote another author whose work was also never translated(Jarosław Grzędowicz): "Native English speakers generally don't accept translations done by anyone who's not a native English speaker as well. Unfortunately there are very few native English speakers who are at the same time experts in Polish, and it so happens that all four of them are currently busy fulfilling their careers as lumberjacks".

gweinberg 5y ago
Given the rather large number of Polish Americans, I would think finding people who are fluent in English and Polish wouldn't be all that hard.
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  It takes the cultural back-and-forth for that work out, along with a few other factors. Most Polonia (as we call Polish-Americans) are firmly set in the US and usually don’t get higher education in Poland. This means that while they understand the language, they don’t really “get” the temperament and are losing a grip on the culture. I say this from personal experience and upbringing. Polonia also tend to be working-class. As a dilettante/temp Polish/English translator I would also say it really requires a very specific mix of values and circumstances. To pull off a quality translation of a piece of literature one has to put almost as much energy into it as it takes to write to begin with. It’s a huge undertaking, with not that big a payoff and it requires specific values, commitment and education. I’m surprised such people exist, really.
- Tade0 5y ago
  To add to the sibling comment: I was born abroad myself and I often feel that I lack cultural context. I also have friends and relatives who grew up abroad and while their Polish is perfect in terms of grammar and pronunciation, they use almost no idioms.
- p_l 5y ago
  The kind of fluency needed to translate doesn't come with memetically bad "Polonia" polish (even if it's a bit of exaggeration). Especially with works that use polish language to its fullest (like Lem) or reference culture and events that are local (infamous example was the first Witcher game, but also Witcher novels - the english translation of the game was much, much weaker content than the polish original which requires familiarity with polish politics 2000-2007). So you need a combo of american poet, fluent polish linguist, and possibly historian and/or anthropologist. Tall order. Sometimes it can be smoothed over by adding considerable appendices (something that accompanied first releases of Harry Potter in Polish, for example, explaining untranslatable puns and reasons for translating things in specific way) but again, not a trivial thing to do.
getoj 5y ago
>Native English speakers generally don't accept translations done by anyone who's not a native English speaker as well Is it common practice in Poland (or anywhere else) for people to translate from their native language into another language? I have personally never heard of commercial translations being done by non-natives in any language, but I'd be very interested to learn about such a place.
- Tade0 5y ago
  > Is it common practice in Poland (or anywhere else) for people to translate from their native language into another language? I would say it's uncommon, but I think that after some digging I could maybe find a few examples of self-published work translated to English by the author. Off the top of my head I can only think of examples of books translated into Esperanto, but I assume this doesn't count. Historically Joseph Conrad was a Polish native speaker, but wrote exclusively in English so there's that.
dougmwne 5y ago
Cute, but completely preposterous. Vast numbers of Polish people speak perfect English, including my husband. It’s probably just not commercially interesting to translate and market.
- Tade0 5y ago
  Of course this was said in jest. He just didn't think his work would do well commercially if translated.