Translating titles
Posted by Silke on August 12, 1998 at 10:02:14:
In response to What's in a word, written by Jane on August 11, 1998 at 22:16:20
] In Italian, if I recall, Svevo's book is "La coscienza de Zeno", which translates as conciousness, conscience, or awareness. Now I hacked through it with my pathetic grasp of Italian, and while I would have appreciated it more in translation, probably, you can see that even translating the title requires a choice that loses two out of the three meanings in Italian, all of which are partly "right". Funny that the translator chose "Confessions", which wasn't one of the direct translations at all.
The translation of the title is indeed a very difficult matter I find. Especially film titles nowadays often remain in English (here in Germany). On the other hand it happens that a translated title bears no resemblance to the original at all. For example, a very strange translation (at least in my opinion) was done for ''Brigdet Jones's Diary''. It is ''Chocolate for breakfast''. I've probably seen it a thousand times in a book store without realizing it IS Brigdet Jones!
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