When I was a kid proudly collecting 45 rpm records, as we called them, there seemed to be a Connie Francis song in the hit parade every week. On the "B side" of many of these vinyls [which, being me, I still have] was an Italian song. I would learn the words by heart and I often wonder if my interest in the language began right there.
This version of What Now My Love? is not one of the songs in my Connie Francis collection but I have chosen it because I like it and because it makes a point about translation: the Italian version keeps the original French title and opening line, because "E adesso" has the tonic stress in the wrong place, is too sibilant and just wouldn't sound right.
Indeed, the translations of some songs are not translations at all: they are just words that happen to fit the music in another language as a "close" translation would be impossible. Any translation is a "version" [with translations into the mother tongue going by that name academically] and should read as if it has not been translated. The eternal dilemma of the good translator [who should translate into, not from, his /her mother tongue] is "Have I been too 'free' here?" [ie., "Is the version I've come up with, which now reads like good English, too distant in shades of meaning from the original?"] Making these fine judgements takes ages and requires cross-referencing in bilingual and monolingual dictionaries, the use of thesauruses in both languages and, very often, specialised dictionaries [legal, medical, etc.] This is why automatic online translation services are rubbish and I go crazy if I see a student using them.
Now that I've had my rant I will take you back to the great Miss Concetta Franconero: this "version" is not too far removed from the French and I hope you enjoy it.
Connie Francis - Et Maintenant [1965]
14 comments:
I think a good translation should translate the meaning, rather than be grammatically correct.
Hi, Cherie. Of course, but it does have to be grammatically correct in the language you translate into.
but it does have to be grammatically correct in the language you translate into.
I think that depends on whether you want a perfect translation or a perfect communication...
And there is the impressionist versus the classicist.
I know what you mean about the online translators. They do not give the correct translation, I go crazy trying to find the meaning of words and or translate them.
Translation is indeed a fine art that requires continual strokes of genius, sentence after sentence!
I attended a poetry reading recently and Menna Elfyn who was doing the introduction had translated the poetry of Gillian Clarke, Wales' National Poet. Even more so than in a song it must be nearly impossible to translate poetry. It must be a new poem surely. I can't me 'ead round that.
Hi, Cherie. A good translator should be able to provide both. If I handed a client a translation which was not grammatically perfect in English, I would not be hired again! True, James and one would follow the style of the original. Hi, nunyaa. That's because these programmes pay no attention to context. Absolutely right, Saretta! Hi, Liz. Poetry is terribly difficult to translate.
I think I read somewhere that Zucchero always translates his own Italian songs into English. I think he started so that his songs would be known in the English speaking.
I did meet this professor, a poet, who does parallel translation. She has a native speaker translate the original and then she turns it into a literary work, including poetry. She has had quite a few books published like this. I thought it sounded rather impossible but she said it worked really well.
Hi, jmb. That's interesting. It does happen sometimes that a translator who is probably a poet themselves can make a good poem of the work.
Yes translation can be very tricky, I remember years ago on a visit to Spain i was taken ill and the friend I was with explained from a dictionary that I was prone to black outs. They were very puzzled as the word she used meant the electricity had failed!
Hi, Granny on the web. That's a classic and funny example - thanks for sharing.
Good post. I have a bunch of 45's from the 50's/60's that belonged to my mother. Am not sure if she picked them up in Italy or the states, but some of the artists are Domenico Modugno, Fred Buscaglione, Don Marino Barreto Jr., Gino Bechi and Tony Dallara. They are all in mint condition; am sure you would appreciate them.
Thanks, Lord S. I'm sure I would appreciate those discs. Wouldn't it be interesting to know where your mother found them?
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