Skip to main content

Translation

Reading helps make sense of the world around. Translating what we read into another language helped me more. Although I consider myself a technical translator and translator’s aid, this page wishes to share, through my sometimes rather pathetic attempts to translate poetry and prose, what I learned from Hungarian literature.

The latest:

Kafka’s Son, by Szilárd Borbély (2021) – excerpt

“This novel takes place in East Europe. It’s about travelers and travels. About Franz Kafka’s travel, who is not Franz Kafka. And about staying in one place, without what the travel would be meaningless. Then about the walks, whose route always circles back to itself. And about spaces, which helplessly observe all this. Following and escorting the one who walks. The person who walks and reaches nowhere. Just provides a structure to the space with the motion and joins spaces. Spaces, which, for all their crowdedness, are just as lonely in East Europe as the person who crosses them.”
– Translated from Borbély Szilárd: Kafka fia, Jelenkor, ePub (p.5)

About Translation

On the harmony of content and form:

The Great Secret, by Ferencz Kazinczy

Good’n well! In this reads the great device. If you don’t get it,
plow and sow, leave for others the sacrifice.

-Hungarian: Kazinczy Ferenc: A nagy titok (1808)

Playing with words, seriously:

With pure heart, by Attila József

Ain’t no daddy, ain’t no mom,
Ain’t no country, ain’t no God,
Ain’t no crib, or ain’t no lover,
Ain’t no kisses, ain’t no cover.

-Hungarian: József Attila: Tiszta szívvel (1925) – first stanza

[Don’t you rush it], by Attila József

Don’t you rush it,
Although others will profit,
Your work should be precise, aiming high,
As the stars move along in the sky,
The way it’s only worth it.

– Hungarian: József Attila: (Ne légy szeles…) (1935)

Bits and pieces

[Mouse teasing cat]
You are stretched out on your pillow,
Like a sausage, pudgy and mellow.

– Hungarian: Mi újság a Futrinka utcában, by Ágnes Bálint

Translating the text of a commercial flashing in front of your eyes or the fragment of a dialog you just overheard will give a break to your  stressed-out brain.

-Inspired by Kató Lomb, a 16-language interpreter and translator, author of Polyglot – How I Learn Languages