4 ms·

Wow. What a great story. An in translation, no less. The Greek translator must have been very talented. (Kind of curious now ... were the other translated edit

Wow. What a great story. An in translation, no less. The Greek translator must have been very talented. (Kind of curious now ... were the other translated editions in non-English languages as powerful? Do readers of science fiction in other languages seek out works by specific translators or publishers known to have great translations?)

chrisweekly 1y ago
"translated by GPT"
- grujicd 1y ago
  I believe parent was talking about translated book, not about the comment.
  - daremon 1y ago
    Yes exactly, I had this story written in Greek and used GPT to translate it. The Greek edition I read was from 1989.
  - mortos 1y ago
    I'm fairly certain their post is translated, they said the received the book in 1993 which predates GPT by at least a couple years
  - olddustytrail 1y ago
    I think they're talking about both the comment being translated by ChatGPT and that the book was a Greek translation of Neuromancer.
  - chrisweekly 1y ago
    Respectfully, they wrote, "Sorry for the long post (translated by GPT as it was originally in Greek)." It seems unambiguous to me, they were referring to their own posted comment. Edited to add: they also confirmed same in this thread.
unsigner 1y ago
The Bulgarian translation I read was a valiant effort by a guy who ran the Bulgarian "science fiction and fantasy BBS". (Yes, that kind of BBS, with the dial-up modems, XMODEM/YMODEM/ZMODEM etc.) (Yes, it was mostly for pirating books in the form of badly OCR-ed TXT files, and occasionally discussing them.) Apparently at some point he decided he needs to bring Gibson to the non-English speaking part of the population and... I don't remember the translation as being "good", but it definitely was "bold".
- gessha 1y ago
  Is there a place that has stories about Bulgarian BBS?
  - Bluestein 1y ago
    Heck, I'll take BBSs in general.-
SonOfLilit 1y ago
Russian culture considers translated (I think) Shakespeare to surpass the original. We Israelis also had one of our more famous poets (Alterman) translate some Shakespeare but I'm not aware of the translation being considered a masterpiece on its own (personally it felt too archaic to appreciate). We have two translations of Lord of the Rings (Tolkien fans being one of the more picky bunches of book geeks here, I'll refer to it in depth.) The older one, by Lavnit, is considered more beautiful and poetic and flowing (my nick comes from it though I was never much of a Tolkien geek, just hung out with them - Elves were translated into the Sons of Lillith from Hebrew mythology, and my mother's name is Lillith...). It's also long out of print and goes for (lowish I believe) collector prices. The newer one by Dr Emanuel Lotem is more... I don't know, academic maybe would be the word? Anyway, the Tolkien community hates him so much that he's one of their main memes. He also translated Dragonlance, which I grew up with, so I had no ill will towards him myself, and at some point I realized he's the one who managed to translate the Illuminatus! trilogy, which is... quite a feat. I wouldn't expect it to be translatable. So now I hold a deep appreciation for him. The local Harry Potter geeks treated the translator as a minor celeb. Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of any other translators that are held in special regard.
- GauntletWizard 1y ago
  I only read Shakespeare in the original Klingon
  - shagie 1y ago
    I recall getting that book... One of the challenges with Khamlet is that Klingon originally had no state of being verb - it was part of the word itself rather than a bare "I am {something}". Thus "to be or not to be" was never something that was translatable in the original Klingon language and it had to be updated. Glancing at Amazon, there appears to be a release of Sunzi's Art of War from 2018.
  - mikhailfranco 1y ago
    I only read Shakespeare in C: Ox2b | ~0x2B
daremon 1y ago
He really tried IMO. Actually I wrote this story to him, the translator of the Greek edition when I happened to find him on Facebook. He told me he felt he didn't do justice to the original work and always felt a bit bad.
- MonkeyClub 1y ago
  Γεια σου, πατριώτη! (Hello, compariot!) I think I read the same text in a 1996 reprint some years later, in 1999 - coincidentally also during my last year of highschool with impending doom^Wexams afoot. Definitely mind-expanding, and helped shape my early cyberpunk tastes, though it didn't get me hitched :) I do think the translation was excellent, he definitely must have put hard work and passion into it!
daremon 1y ago
Generally I don't like translations. After the Internet became a thing and Amazon started shipping to Greece (probably after 2000) I never read Greek translations of English literature again.
astrolx 1y ago
In French, I find that translations of Edgard Allan Poe by Baudelaire are really nice. I enjoy them as much as the original version. Sci-fi translations of US science fiction classics (Orwell, Bradbury etc..) are usually excellent too. I find myself re-reading these books in French and/or English according to mood. On the other hans, I find that French translators usually utterly fail to capture the dry kind humor from British authors. From Jane Austen to Lord of the Rings, it reads so serious in French translations!!

chrisweekly 1y ago

"translated by GPT"

grujicd 1y ago
I believe parent was talking about translated book, not about the comment.
- daremon 1y ago
  Yes exactly, I had this story written in Greek and used GPT to translate it. The Greek edition I read was from 1989.
- mortos 1y ago
  I'm fairly certain their post is translated, they said the received the book in 1993 which predates GPT by at least a couple years
- olddustytrail 1y ago
  I think they're talking about both the comment being translated by ChatGPT and that the book was a Greek translation of Neuromancer.
- chrisweekly 1y ago
  Respectfully, they wrote, "Sorry for the long post (translated by GPT as it was originally in Greek)." It seems unambiguous to me, they were referring to their own posted comment. Edited to add: they also confirmed same in this thread.

unsigner 1y ago

The Bulgarian translation I read was a valiant effort by a guy who ran the Bulgarian "science fiction and fantasy BBS". (Yes, that kind of BBS, with the dial-up modems, XMODEM/YMODEM/ZMODEM etc.) (Yes, it was mostly for pirating books in the form of badly OCR-ed TXT files, and occasionally discussing them.) Apparently at some point he decided he needs to bring Gibson to the non-English speaking part of the population and... I don't remember the translation as being "good", but it definitely was "bold".

gessha 1y ago
Is there a place that has stories about Bulgarian BBS?
- Bluestein 1y ago
  Heck, I'll take BBSs in general.-

SonOfLilit 1y ago

Russian culture considers translated (I think) Shakespeare to surpass the original. We Israelis also had one of our more famous poets (Alterman) translate some Shakespeare but I'm not aware of the translation being considered a masterpiece on its own (personally it felt too archaic to appreciate). We have two translations of Lord of the Rings (Tolkien fans being one of the more picky bunches of book geeks here, I'll refer to it in depth.) The older one, by Lavnit, is considered more beautiful and poetic and flowing (my nick comes from it though I was never much of a Tolkien geek, just hung out with them - Elves were translated into the Sons of Lillith from Hebrew mythology, and my mother's name is Lillith...). It's also long out of print and goes for (lowish I believe) collector prices. The newer one by Dr Emanuel Lotem is more... I don't know, academic maybe would be the word? Anyway, the Tolkien community hates him so much that he's one of their main memes. He also translated Dragonlance, which I grew up with, so I had no ill will towards him myself, and at some point I realized he's the one who managed to translate the Illuminatus! trilogy, which is... quite a feat. I wouldn't expect it to be translatable. So now I hold a deep appreciation for him. The local Harry Potter geeks treated the translator as a minor celeb. Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of any other translators that are held in special regard.

GauntletWizard 1y ago
I only read Shakespeare in the original Klingon
- shagie 1y ago
  I recall getting that book... One of the challenges with Khamlet is that Klingon originally had no state of being verb - it was part of the word itself rather than a bare "I am {something}". Thus "to be or not to be" was never something that was translatable in the original Klingon language and it had to be updated. Glancing at Amazon, there appears to be a release of Sunzi's Art of War from 2018.
- mikhailfranco 1y ago
  I only read Shakespeare in C: Ox2b | ~0x2B

daremon 1y ago

He really tried IMO. Actually I wrote this story to him, the translator of the Greek edition when I happened to find him on Facebook. He told me he felt he didn't do justice to the original work and always felt a bit bad.

MonkeyClub 1y ago
Γεια σου, πατριώτη! (Hello, compariot!) I think I read the same text in a 1996 reprint some years later, in 1999 - coincidentally also during my last year of highschool with impending doom^Wexams afoot. Definitely mind-expanding, and helped shape my early cyberpunk tastes, though it didn't get me hitched :) I do think the translation was excellent, he definitely must have put hard work and passion into it!

daremon 1y ago

Generally I don't like translations. After the Internet became a thing and Amazon started shipping to Greece (probably after 2000) I never read Greek translations of English literature again.

astrolx 1y ago

In French, I find that translations of Edgard Allan Poe by Baudelaire are really nice. I enjoy them as much as the original version. Sci-fi translations of US science fiction classics (Orwell, Bradbury etc..) are usually excellent too. I find myself re-reading these books in French and/or English according to mood. On the other hans, I find that French translators usually utterly fail to capture the dry kind humor from British authors. From Jane Austen to Lord of the Rings, it reads so serious in French translations!!