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Comment by emsign

1 day ago

You can't compare translation to creating new works of art. Sorry mom, but that's apples and oranges. A dangerously false comparison.

If you speak more than one language(esp something like Chinese or Japanese) you understand how subjective some choices are. It certainly takes creative decision making.

  • I speak Japanese natively and hell, I'm just going to say, there is no such thing as translation, there is just foreign language ghostwriting.

    I'm not even sure if bilingualism is real or if it's just an alternate expression for relatively benign forced split personality. Could very well be.

As noted in another sub-thread, translations are indeed works of art. As evidence, my mom has received royalties for her translations for decades, both from sales and from library lending. And she could sue for copyright infringement if someone stole her translation. The only difference is that she needs permission to distribute the translation, unless it’s translated from the public domain.