I love French and I have been studying it for four years. Over the next six weeks of this project I plan to combine my love of the French and English languages to explore a new interest of mine: the art of literary translation. How does one transfer ideas across languages without losing or changing any of the original meaning? I will attempt to discover the answers to this question as I learn about translation.
At first I plan to do some reading and research about the process. I have already found a resource from the American Literary Translators Association called The Making of a Literary Translator that I plan to use. There is also a book that I want to look into called Literary Translation: A Practical Guide by Clifford E. Landers.
My main goal is to practice what I learn by actively translating a French work. I chose to use this book:
Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It is a well known classic but one that I have not read before in either English or French. I am excited to read Le Petit Prince in it’s original language; I have heard that it is a beautiful and touching story. After I have done some initial research I will read the story in French and personally translate it into English. From the point I start translating, I will attempt to do at least a little bit of translation every day (I'm allowing myself off on March 7-9. I don't think I will have the time since the musical is on those days). Weekly I will review what I have translated, make an assessment of my progress and how much more I need to do, and update my blog with excerpts from my translation. Once I have finished my translation I plan to compare it to the published English edition of the book (titled The Little Prince). I want to analyze how well I communicated the original ideas of the story and see what alternatives there are to the word choice that I use and also identify and fix the mistakes or miscommunications that I make (because I know that I will make them).
I am excited to get started! Who knows, with this project I might not discover just an interest but a potential career path I may want to pursue...
