Translating a book is much more than just converting the word "azul" in spanish to "blue" in english. I'm pretty sure we've established that fact. A translator needs to capture the author's tone and charisma, take into consideration the audience he/she is translating for, and maintain the literary credibility of the text.
But I was wondering....is the way each individual person interprets the text a translation? Are interpretations and translations two different things? A month ago, I would have said yes in a second - but now I'm not so sure. Maybe that's why Boccaccio was so vague and ambiguous in stating his purposes for writing The Decameron. He knew that everyone was going to interpret (or, should I say, translate?) his text differently no matter how specific he was in articulating his thoughts. In his mind, maybe that's part of the reason why the world is so unstable - given one event witnessed by 10 people, there could be 10 different explanations as to what happened.
COMPLETELY related to this topic - I found a blog talking ALL about the translation of Harry Potter! It actually talks a lot about the stuff we talked about in class (can translations be too literal, what the translator needs to achieve in translating, etc). It also suggests a few other websites, which are pretty cool. Check it out! HarryPotter
Wow, this is long. and kinda rambly. oops. that's what i get for trying to answer the unanswerable.
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