It's always important for translators to keep up to date with the culture of the countries whose languages they translate. And not just with contemporary culture. History is also important because one never knows when some otherwise obscure reference to something or someone is going to be made in a text.  If one has at least an inkling of an idea as to where to start researching, this can save hours.

On May 4th, BRSLI is holding a lecture on the life of Rosa Luxemburg. This lady, who is widely known in Germany (lots of streets are named for her, for example) crosses the boundaries of a few cultures as she was born in Russian-controlled Poland in 1871 and eventually became a naturalised German citizen and was a political activist, feminist and writer.

More information about the lecture is available from BRSLI website.

Further information about her can be found on Wikipedia in English here or in German here.
Tickets to the talk are available from the Bath Box Office

Last minute notice about two German-related events in Bath!

Tonight (19 April), Bath German Society is hosting a talk on Brecht als Lyriker. The speaker is Dr Hartmut Logemann, professor of Mathematics at Bath University. The venue is Manvers St Baptist Church Hall.  Doors open at 7.30 p.m. for coffee and German conversation, the lecture will start at 8.15 p.m.

My colleague, Cherry Shelton-Mills, has organised an event at the Bath Royal Scientific and Institution (BRSLI). It is open to professional translators working with German as one of their languages. More information and contact details are available here.

Last week, my review of Bath Literature Festival's Translating Tolstoy event was published in the Bath Chronicle.  The editor restricted me to a mere 150 words, so for those who like a bit more meat on their bones, here is the piece in full written for a non-specialist readership.

*****

Native speakers of English often forget just how spoiled they are. As speakers of one of the world's major languages we do not always appreciate just how much has been translated for our benefit. And it is rare that we ever consider how complex a task this might be.

Rosamund Bartlett, who has been commissioned by Oxford World Classics to produce a new translation of Anna Karenina, demonstrated some of the challenges she faces as she tries to convey the life, mind and culture of one of Russia's greatest 19^th century writers.

Ms Bartlett began her presentation by explaining that having started the translation of Anna Karenina she then broke off to write a biography of Tolstoy. This experience revealed to her the many styles and registers that Tolstoy commands and has allowed her to return to her earlier drafts of her translation to rewrite passages now that she feels she knows the author so much more thoroughly.

Tolstoy's use of the Russian language is very simple but his sentences are very complex. Ivan Bunin said of him that he has a "complete lack of belletristic decoration, of trite devices and conventions". However, he does have a habit of making up words which are very difficult to translate concisely and another trick is to repeat the same adjective up to four times in a short paragraph.  This poses the question of how literal should a translator be? Should she retain and reflect the Russian syntax and grammar or write in idiomatic English and choose a variety of adjectives? Ms Bartlett takes the view that it is important to adhere to the original style. Russian uses one word to convey a range of emotions whereas English has lots of words with subtle nuances. The nuances in Russian are conveyed by the context of the piece and it is the translator's job to interpret this for the foreign reader.

What is Bartlett trying to achieve that is different from the many previous translations of Tolstoy's work? Her aim is to find language that is timeless. Previous translations need updating but it is not enough to make the translation contemporary for this, too, in time will date.  One considerable challenge is conveying Russian dialect. The translator has to bear in mind that the work is not going to be read only by British readers but also by readers of other variants of our language. It would therefore not be appropriate, for example, to have peasants speaking with a rendition of a British dialect so Bartlett's aim is to keep the language in these situations clean, neutral and simple.

The internet is a huge help to Bartlett as she demonstrated in a passage of the text concerning 19^th century bee-keeping practices. Previous translators had struggled to convey a couple of words accurately and in one or two cases the words had been entirely lost in translation as they crumbled in the face of the task before them. With vast resources at her disposal Bartlett is able to research the necessary specialist glossaries to find the precise (and highly obscure) terminology required.  Such research can involve huge swathes of time and may sometimes mean that rather than translating a chapter in a day her output is reduced to a couple of paragraphs.

Rosamund Bartlett, clearly an expert in her field, conveyed a sense of humility about her work. She confessed unashamedly to drawing on other translations of Tolstoy's work and acknowledged the huge debt she owes to them. In having studied Tolstoy so carefully in writing about him as a man and translating his work, she was aware that she was still learning and still trying to understand him. We, the readers of Tolstoy, can only be grateful that she has devoted so much of her life to this task as most of us will not have the ability or time to achieve a standard of Russian to read his work in the original.

Communication in daily is life is taken for granted.  We speak and listen to others all the time. We may listen to the trivia of the lives of our friends and family, we may address a meeting, or be required to give instructions in a life-and-death situation.  The hard-of-hearing and the deaf find communication has its own challenges when operating in the hearing world.

I was delighted to read in the Bath Chronicle that Bath Building Society staff have undertaken a tailor-made course in British Sign Language to communicate with their deaf customers.  This is a wonderful development in promoting the idea in our largely monolingual society that languages at work are an essential tool.  Effective communication, be it in English, sign language, or foreign languages, ensures better service, customer acquisition and customer retention.

I have only just discovered that the wonderful London foreign-language bookshop, Grant and Cutler, is now located at Foyles on the Charing Cross Road (and has been since March 2011).

I am particularly fond of Grant and Cutler because I was a frequent customer during my undergraduate days. It was located in Buckingham St in a wonderfully labyrinthine building down by the River. The rooms were small and stuffed from top to bottom with all sorts of fascinating tomes; one could easily allow a couple of hours to pass unnoticed ensconced in the atmospheric surroundings.

After graduating, I was employed in the shop's German department after the business had relocated to Great Marlborough St. This was a very lively area - just next to Liberty's and Carnaby St and directly behind Oxford St. I was assigned a desk in the middle of the shop with a typewriter that looked as if it might have been state-of-the-art in 1936 when the shop first opened its doors but which looked decidedly antiquated by the time I came to use it. I don't think the little finger on my left hand has ever quite recovered from the force needed to hit the "a" and "z" keys ("z" is much more commonly used in German than in English). Computers were not in common use at the time and unbelievable as this may sound these days we managed perfectly well with ordering and despatching books without their advantages.

I shall make a point of going to visit the shop in its new incarnation when I am next in London and see if I can spot any former colleagues lurking behind piles of Goethe plays and Kafka novels. I don't suppose their desks will be in the middle of the shop!

The next piece of bookshop news is slightly more current. Waterstones has recently announced that it is opening a bookshop selling Russian-language books in its Piccadilly branch. A bit of healthy competition for Foyles perhaps?

The Bath Literature Festival's programme has been published and it is proving popular. Two events I thought I might attend have already sold out!  So get your skates on if you want to attend.

Two other events for which I believe there are still seats available and that will be of interest to translators and other linguists in Bath are these:

Translating Tolstoy on Tuesday 6 March with Rosamund Bartlett who is currently translating  Anna Karenina. She will be in conversation with the Artistic Director of the Festival, James Runcie. It will be interesting to hear about how she tackles her work.



All fans of correct punctuation will be delighted to hear that Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves will be talking on that subject on Sunday 11 March. I wonder what her position is on the recent decision by Waterstones to drop their apostrophe?

There are lots more events too! I can't wait.

(Image copyright of Bath LitFest)

I once heard that a 40-year old man worked out that if he lived to the age of 70, he would have time to read only another 360 books at his current rate of one per month.  It does not sound like an awful lot of books so with that in mind one has to be discerning about what one selects. There is no time to waste on the wrong kind of book - whatever you might deem that to be.

Two books that I have come across recently are definitely on my reading list and are likely to appeal to almost all readers of this blog.

The first is The Etymologicon by Mark Foster which is a fascinating stroll through the highways and byways of the English language during which he demonstrates the links between words. See if you agree with his sweeping claim that "almost every word in the English language derives from shah"!

Never dusty, always entertaining and I can recommend it as un-put-downable. (I've had to hide my copy from myself (!) to make sure I concentrate on a project I'm currently doing!!)

(If you want to look inside, you'll have to visit the Amazon website. I obtained my copy from the wonderful Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath - a hugely satisfying "real world" experience).

Another book I cannot wait to start looking at is already causing a buzz in the translation world.  Most translators will be already familiar with Mox's blog - and now the hilarious cartoon strips of the world of freelance translation have been collected into book form by Mox's creator, Alejandro Moreno-Ramos. Follow this link to find out more about Mox. Illustrated Guide to Freelance Translation.

Graduates with degrees in languages are in great demand so this event will help you to think about pursuing a career using your skills.  The Careers in Languages Day on Saturday 28 January (and again on Saturday 12 February) held at the University of Westminster, London, sounds like a good place to find out about the options open to you.

Check out this link for all the details you need - and contact the organisers direct. Have fun!

Bath German Society, of which I have the privilege of being Chair, has been running in its current incarnation for just over 20 years.

It holds its main meetings on the third Thursday of the month (usually - but check the website for details) at Manvers St Baptist Church rooms. This venue is conveniently located near the railway and bus stations for those coming from further afield. Free car parking is available in the adjacent car park from 8 p.m.

Coffee is served before the meetings from 7.45 pm and there is the opportunity to chat in German before the main activity takes place which usually starts at 8.15.

On January 19, Dr Daniel Wolverson will be leading us on a journey through the Galgenlieder of Christian Morgenstern. Copies of the poems will be available on the night.

On February 16, Dr Steve Wharton will be giving a lecture on Die Propaganda der Vichyregierung in Frankreich 1940-1944.

As Bath residents may be aware, the wonderfully Tyrolean-style shop, Hansel and Gretel, is moving from Margaret Buildings to a larger space out of town. Bath German Society would like to wish Christa, Del and their staff all the best for their exciting new adventure. We are sad to see them go as, for the past two years, their Strudel bar has been "home" to the Society's Stammtisch.

The Stammtisch's new venue is Café Retro on the corner of York St (and opposite the gloriously inelegantly named Bog Island!). Serendipitously, there is a Germanic connection at the café as the owner's father-in-law is Austrian and a chef - so I think we will be well looked after!  The Stammtisch meets on Wednesday mornings and operates on a "drop-in, drop-out" basis. Anyone who is free between 11.30 a.m. and 2 p.m. is welcome to come and chat in German (of whatever standard... the Grammar Police do not attend!) for as long as they wish.

We hope to see some new faces!

Don't you just love the BBC?  There is always a wealth of interesting programmes and entertainment offered.

This week's little gem is Melvyn Bragg's The Written World tracing writing from its very beginnings (used originally for keeping accounts) through to the arrival of books, its influence on ideas and religion and the spread of information.

By the end of this week there will be five episodes that you can find on the BBC's Listen Again facility.