I am translating a few pages of Giacomo Leopardi‘s Lo Zibaldone for an unrelated (someone else’s) project. A philosophical tract with sentences that neither end nor make sense, meandering on and on and ON.
What a pain. On the other hand, it’s fun. On the third, fourth and fifth hands, I do not understand some of these sentences at all. How am I supposed to translate them?
Sigh. Philosophers. :)
i hate it when people don’t finish their sentences — especially when
I am sure you will nonetheless do a far superior job to the idiots who translated my Heidegger. I understand that half these concepts only really work in the the old Nazi’s neologism-studded German, but IT IS NO BLOODY USE TO ME if, to apologise for a weak translation, you replicate the entire paragraph in the original. If it was any use to me, I WOULDN’T BE READING IN TRANSLATION GODDAMNIT. Also, if an author is inclined to break into Latin or Greek for entire paragraphs, IT WOULD BE NICE IF THOSE WERE TRANSLATED ALSO. Comprehending this stuff is traumatic enough without… okay, this was a whole year ago. Why am I still ranty?
Sigh. Translators. :)