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A review by oschrock
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos
5.0
This book is a very in-depth and technical discussion of what language is and it contrasts a variety of translation philosophies. Honestly, I was hoping for more of an overview of practical translation for living cross-culturally, but this book is focused much more toward professional translators.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes (emphases mine):
"...all utterances have innumerably many acceptable translations." @location 118
"To expand our minds and to become more fully civilized members of the human race, we should learn as many different languages as we can." @location 2446
"A translation can’t be right or wrong in the manner of a school quiz or a bank statement. A translation is more like a portrait in oils. The artist may add a pearl earring, give an extra flush to the cheek, or miss out the gray hairs in the sideburns—and still give us a good likeness. It’s hard to say just what it is that allows viewers to agree that a portrait captures the important things—the overall shape as well as that special look in the eye. The mysterious abilities we have for recognizing good matches in the visual sphere lie near to what it takes to judge that a translation is good." @location 4627
"If meaning and force are kept the same and if in a limited set of other respects a translation is seen to be like its source, then we have a match." @location 4682
I appreciated the Bellos' approximation of what translation actually is: "Arduously head-scratching, intellectually agile wordsmiths may simultaneously preserve the reference, self-reference, and truth value of an utterance when fate smiles on them and allows them to come up with a multidimensional matching expression in their own language." @location 4057
Here are a few of my favorite quotes (emphases mine):
"...all utterances have innumerably many acceptable translations." @location 118
"To expand our minds and to become more fully civilized members of the human race, we should learn as many different languages as we can." @location 2446
"A translation can’t be right or wrong in the manner of a school quiz or a bank statement. A translation is more like a portrait in oils. The artist may add a pearl earring, give an extra flush to the cheek, or miss out the gray hairs in the sideburns—and still give us a good likeness. It’s hard to say just what it is that allows viewers to agree that a portrait captures the important things—the overall shape as well as that special look in the eye. The mysterious abilities we have for recognizing good matches in the visual sphere lie near to what it takes to judge that a translation is good." @location 4627
"If meaning and force are kept the same and if in a limited set of other respects a translation is seen to be like its source, then we have a match." @location 4682
I appreciated the Bellos' approximation of what translation actually is: "Arduously head-scratching, intellectually agile wordsmiths may simultaneously preserve the reference, self-reference, and truth value of an utterance when fate smiles on them and allows them to come up with a multidimensional matching expression in their own language." @location 4057