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Ok, this is a point that needs discussion. Obviously, everyone translates at different speeds, but what’s drowned out in the context of the marketplace is that faster is not better, and often it’s worse. It’s just that *slower* isn’t necessarily better for me, either. (A thread.) https://twitter.com/sawadhussain/status/1307230047229616128">https://twitter.com/sawadhuss...
I was a non-literary translator for 20 years before my first book. I “grew up” in the Korean freelance market where speed and meeting deadlines was more important than “quality.” Quality (?) is one thing, but breaking deadline is an absolute taboo (an easier metric to measure).
I work the same way that I have for 20 years, “literature” or not. I “find the voice” within me and figure out how to fit every nuance I detect in the source into the voice I hear—well, feel. Once I find this voice, the work moves along very quickly. This, to me, is my art.
Most non-literary work is written in one, plain business voice. (I think of newsreaders on BBC World Service—radio, not TV.) With literary work, I sometimes find the voice in literal seconds, like it was specifically written for me to translate. Reading books a lot helps here.
Some books take longer to find a voice, but I’d be like, Oh this might work well with the Girl Woman Other voice, this might work with the Hemingway voice. Then you use that filter, your version of that voice to “read” the source into English. Writing it down becomes translation.
I call this “my art” because most of this work is done subconsciously, about 70% of it. 30% of it is conscious decisions and problem-solving. 70% is “by ear” or me listening to my inner voice, to what the subconscious throws into my conscious. Of me “getting out of my own way.”
I’m pretty sure this is very familiar to most translators I know. We don’t sit there diagramming sentences (except for the really complex ones!), we’re mostly listening. And it’s harder than it sounds, getting out of your own way. For parents, day-jobbers etc., almost impossible.
I can definitely slog through a translation without this voice, I’m technically proficient enough. But I would be *much* slower because I’d be dying of boredom.
The lesson here is that “if you surrender to the wind, you can *ride* it,” I guess?
The lesson here is that “if you surrender to the wind, you can *ride* it,” I guess?
