Image from: Flüchtlinge und Polizisten am Montag im Hauptbahnhof München © Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images
The Article
The Article
Our first assignment was translating a newspaper article. As this was my first time translating anything, it was a process that brought up many new challenges and ideas, and naturally broadened my idea of translating. Because of the current refugee crisis gripping Europe’s attention, the chosen article revolved around the responses to this crisis. The German state of Bavaria was the focus of the article, although other regions were also looked at. Below you will find an excerpt of that article in German (along with a link to the full article), my translation of that expert, and my reflections on the translating process of this text.
The Excerpt
From "Bayern ruft andere Lände um Hilfe" published online on Zeit Online
Viele wollen nach Deutschland
Ungarn liegt an der sogenannten Westbalkanroute, über die Flüchtlinge aus Syrien und anderen Krisenregionen von Griechenland her weiter in westliche EU-Länder gelangen wollen. Nach den gemeinsamen EU-Asylregeln wäre Griechenland als Ankunftsland, aber auch Ungarn verpflichtet, alle Flüchtlinge zu registrieren. Dazu müssen aber die Behörden Kontakt zu ihnen bekommen.
Viele Flüchtlinge wollen aber nach Deutschland weiterreisen. In Rosenheim stoppte die Bundespolizei einen Zug und brachte 190 Menschen zur Registrierung in eine ehemalige Kaserne. Etwa 200 weitere ließ sie nach München weiterreisen. Am Münchner Hauptbahnhof koordiniert auch die städtische Polizei die Hilfe für die Ankommenden. Viele Menschen brachten dort in den vergangenen Stunden Hilfsgüter hin. Die Polizei dankte auf Twitter für die Hilfsbereitschaft und teilte mit, derzeit werde nichts mehr benötigt.
To read the full German article, go to http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2015-09/fluechtlinge-bayern-oesterreich-budapest_
From "Bayern ruft andere Lände um Hilfe" published online on Zeit Online
Viele wollen nach Deutschland
Ungarn liegt an der sogenannten Westbalkanroute, über die Flüchtlinge aus Syrien und anderen Krisenregionen von Griechenland her weiter in westliche EU-Länder gelangen wollen. Nach den gemeinsamen EU-Asylregeln wäre Griechenland als Ankunftsland, aber auch Ungarn verpflichtet, alle Flüchtlinge zu registrieren. Dazu müssen aber die Behörden Kontakt zu ihnen bekommen.
Viele Flüchtlinge wollen aber nach Deutschland weiterreisen. In Rosenheim stoppte die Bundespolizei einen Zug und brachte 190 Menschen zur Registrierung in eine ehemalige Kaserne. Etwa 200 weitere ließ sie nach München weiterreisen. Am Münchner Hauptbahnhof koordiniert auch die städtische Polizei die Hilfe für die Ankommenden. Viele Menschen brachten dort in den vergangenen Stunden Hilfsgüter hin. Die Polizei dankte auf Twitter für die Hilfsbereitschaft und teilte mit, derzeit werde nichts mehr benötigt.
To read the full German article, go to http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2015-09/fluechtlinge-bayern-oesterreich-budapest_
My Translation
Many want to go to Germany
Hungary lies on the West Balkan Route, a migratory path that stretches from Greece to western Europe. Recently, refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have been traveling along this route. According to EU asylum regulations, Greece should be the sole country of arrival, but now Hungary is also obligated to register all the refugees. For this to happen though, officials must have contact with them.
However, many refugees want to continue on to Germany. In Rosenheim, a city in Bavaria, federal police stopped a train and removed 190 people, who were then registered in former barracks. Around 200 more were allowed to continue their journey on to Munich. In Munich, city police coordinated help for arriving refugees at the train station and in the past hours, many citizens have brought relief supplies. The police sent out a message of thanks on Twitter for the help, but stated that no more goods were needed.
Many want to go to Germany
Hungary lies on the West Balkan Route, a migratory path that stretches from Greece to western Europe. Recently, refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have been traveling along this route. According to EU asylum regulations, Greece should be the sole country of arrival, but now Hungary is also obligated to register all the refugees. For this to happen though, officials must have contact with them.
However, many refugees want to continue on to Germany. In Rosenheim, a city in Bavaria, federal police stopped a train and removed 190 people, who were then registered in former barracks. Around 200 more were allowed to continue their journey on to Munich. In Munich, city police coordinated help for arriving refugees at the train station and in the past hours, many citizens have brought relief supplies. The police sent out a message of thanks on Twitter for the help, but stated that no more goods were needed.
My Reflection
I chose this excerpt because it proved to be one of the more challenging passages to translate. Throughout the article I tried to find a balance between staying faithful to the original text and having the English translation sound clear and smooth. A constant questions was, where do I sacrifice fidelity for clarity? My initial thoughts on the translation process were rather simple: fidelity to the original text was the most important aspect. I would merely have to find the corresponding English word and all would be well. However, I quickly learned that this was a very ignorant assumption of translating. While I am still broadening my idea of what translating encompasses, my first steps towards understanding the translation process started with this text. This excerpt includes many of the new dilemmas I was required to face.
There are two very important things to consider when translating. First, what is the purpose of this text? Second, who is your audience? Are they the same audience as in the original text? Will they understand everything in the original text? These questions were particularly important when it came to this assignment. In this case, I had to consider that this was a newspaper article, meant to clearly and rapidly inform its readership of events unfolding in Bavaria and beyond. This was the purpose of both the original text and the translated text. However, the audiences of the two texts were slightly different. While the intended readership of the original article was a German audience, or at least a German-speaking audience, my audience would be an English-speaking one, particularly American. As a result, one thing I had to consider was whether most Americans would know what different geographic or political terms in German meant. Do most non-Europeans know what the “West Balkan Route” is? Probably not. While I could consider leaving added information out, I felt that in some instances such a choice would negatively affect the comprehension of the English text. Once I had determined to add more clarity to my translation, I needed to be sure that it did not change the smooth flow of the text. Therefore, in one instance, I slightly changed the sentence structure in my English translation. One sentence in the original - “Ungarn liegt an der sogenannten Westbalkanroute, über die Flüchtlinge aus Syrien und anderen Krisenregionen von Griechenland her weiter in westliche EU-Länder gelangenwollen” - became two sentences: “Hungary lies on the West Balkan Route, a migratory path that stretches from Greece to western Europe. Recently, refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have been traveling along this route.” While this is not a faithful word-for-word translation of the original text, it does provide needed information to the American reader while still retaining the original message in the German text. I found that this was required throughout the text – an added word here, a clarifying clause there. As a newspaper article is meant to clearly inform its audience, these additions were needed in the translated English text. However, such additions are not needed for every form of translating, as I learned through translating other kinds of texts.
Another thing I worked on in this section was clear comprehension of German grammar. In achieving my goal for this semester, I will need to analyze more German grammar structures - something I frequently did in this assignment. By not realizing the subjunctive nature of one verb in particular (“wäre” in the second sentence) I missed clearly and correctly translating important information. Once I had corrected my mistake, I found that I needed to put in an extra word in the English translation, in order to make the message clear. In this instance, I was straying from fidelity for the sake of clarity yet again.
A clear challenge that I faced in translating this article was how to remain faithful to the original text while having the translated work sound good in English. Something that sounded fine in German sounded horrible in English. In order to remedy this, I would add conjunctions, change the word order, and use nicer sounding synonyms. However, there were also cases when something didn’t sound good in the original German and the translated English. In those instances, I tried to remain as faithful as I could to the German, while finding a better, if not slightly different, term in English. My reasoning for this is that those reading my translation will not know that the original text was poorly written. They will merely conclude that it is a poor translation and leave the article, which is not the intended purpose of my translation.
After translating this newspaper article, my class went on to translate a text on tourism and then on literary prose. While those texts are clearly different, this translation was a building block. While I have left this article, the broad issues and challenges I faced here are ones I am still learning about.
I chose this excerpt because it proved to be one of the more challenging passages to translate. Throughout the article I tried to find a balance between staying faithful to the original text and having the English translation sound clear and smooth. A constant questions was, where do I sacrifice fidelity for clarity? My initial thoughts on the translation process were rather simple: fidelity to the original text was the most important aspect. I would merely have to find the corresponding English word and all would be well. However, I quickly learned that this was a very ignorant assumption of translating. While I am still broadening my idea of what translating encompasses, my first steps towards understanding the translation process started with this text. This excerpt includes many of the new dilemmas I was required to face.
There are two very important things to consider when translating. First, what is the purpose of this text? Second, who is your audience? Are they the same audience as in the original text? Will they understand everything in the original text? These questions were particularly important when it came to this assignment. In this case, I had to consider that this was a newspaper article, meant to clearly and rapidly inform its readership of events unfolding in Bavaria and beyond. This was the purpose of both the original text and the translated text. However, the audiences of the two texts were slightly different. While the intended readership of the original article was a German audience, or at least a German-speaking audience, my audience would be an English-speaking one, particularly American. As a result, one thing I had to consider was whether most Americans would know what different geographic or political terms in German meant. Do most non-Europeans know what the “West Balkan Route” is? Probably not. While I could consider leaving added information out, I felt that in some instances such a choice would negatively affect the comprehension of the English text. Once I had determined to add more clarity to my translation, I needed to be sure that it did not change the smooth flow of the text. Therefore, in one instance, I slightly changed the sentence structure in my English translation. One sentence in the original - “Ungarn liegt an der sogenannten Westbalkanroute, über die Flüchtlinge aus Syrien und anderen Krisenregionen von Griechenland her weiter in westliche EU-Länder gelangenwollen” - became two sentences: “Hungary lies on the West Balkan Route, a migratory path that stretches from Greece to western Europe. Recently, refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have been traveling along this route.” While this is not a faithful word-for-word translation of the original text, it does provide needed information to the American reader while still retaining the original message in the German text. I found that this was required throughout the text – an added word here, a clarifying clause there. As a newspaper article is meant to clearly inform its audience, these additions were needed in the translated English text. However, such additions are not needed for every form of translating, as I learned through translating other kinds of texts.
Another thing I worked on in this section was clear comprehension of German grammar. In achieving my goal for this semester, I will need to analyze more German grammar structures - something I frequently did in this assignment. By not realizing the subjunctive nature of one verb in particular (“wäre” in the second sentence) I missed clearly and correctly translating important information. Once I had corrected my mistake, I found that I needed to put in an extra word in the English translation, in order to make the message clear. In this instance, I was straying from fidelity for the sake of clarity yet again.
A clear challenge that I faced in translating this article was how to remain faithful to the original text while having the translated work sound good in English. Something that sounded fine in German sounded horrible in English. In order to remedy this, I would add conjunctions, change the word order, and use nicer sounding synonyms. However, there were also cases when something didn’t sound good in the original German and the translated English. In those instances, I tried to remain as faithful as I could to the German, while finding a better, if not slightly different, term in English. My reasoning for this is that those reading my translation will not know that the original text was poorly written. They will merely conclude that it is a poor translation and leave the article, which is not the intended purpose of my translation.
After translating this newspaper article, my class went on to translate a text on tourism and then on literary prose. While those texts are clearly different, this translation was a building block. While I have left this article, the broad issues and challenges I faced here are ones I am still learning about.