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Morendil comments on “Pickled Stewberries!” in HPMoR, Omake #3 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (22)
Since IHOP is mostly unknown in German-speaking countries, I think it's best if we drop that line from the translation. (We could leave it in there and explain it, but explaining jokes is usually not a good idea…)
Please don't. See my comments elsewhere. A translator has no business making alterations to the original work.
I feel very strongly about this, because I have huge amounts of experience reading bad translations of Sci-Fi authors to French, to the point that at an early age I taught myself English out of the originals just so I could enjoy non-sabotaged versions of these works I loved so much.
I see your point, agree in principle and definitely feel the same way about the main work. In this special case, though, I'd like to point out that this does not concern the main work, that it is a minimal alteration, and that it would actually be a tiny improvement from the point of view of most readers (who would otherwise be confused by a joke which they can't understand due to cultural reasons.) Note that I agree that it would objectively be a deterioration of the whole work – our disagreement simply concerns the question, how (or whether) one should weigh up objective quality vs. subjective impression of readers.
That being said, I just thought of a way to explain the joke without being too “in-your-face” about it: Just leave “PANCAKES!” in the text, the way it is, and add something like “So … that were references to politics, American restaurant chains, Dune and Star Trek.” after the end of the chapter. (Each including the appropriate Wikipedia link.) How do you feel about this option?
I think I would much prefer a translation which found some equivalent of the "House X" construction, and used that consistently to translate the "pancake", "pickled" etc. jokes - even if it ended up using something other than literally pancakes and fruit preserves.
So for instance "Haus der Wirtschaft" and "Haus des Lehrers" would yield non-slavish equivalents but a German reader might recognize both of them as being names of well-known (?) landmarks in German towns. It is this sense of familiarity that constitutes the essence of the joke, I'd argue. I'm not saying this is an ideal translation, just trying to come up with at least one example which strikes me as better than dropping the line or leaving the original English in.
We finally went with “Lebkuchenhaus“ – the German word for gingerbread house – instead of IHOP. (Which is an ideal translation imho – I just didn't think of it … Luckily, a friend of mine suggested it immediately after I asked her!)
Thanks for your comments; they made sure I always had the motivation I needed to care about these tiny details.
So in other words... those translators made your life much better?
Two answers occur. Pick whichever suits you: