[HN Gopher] Breaking into English
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       Breaking into English
        
       Author : tintinnabula
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2022-09-21 21:37 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lareviewofbooks.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lareviewofbooks.org)
        
       | canadaduane wrote:
       | Hiding the article and asking "Want LARB in your inbox?" before I
       | even know what LARB is was a quick way to send me away.
        
         | CoastalCoder wrote:
         | I don't think "LARB" is too obscure, since it's a popup on the
         | website "lareviewofbooks.org".
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | This seems a little like an orphan statistic writ large without
       | information about similar processes in other countries. How does
       | it compare to an American author who "isn't a known quantity" in
       | Mexico getting published in Mexico? A Canadian author getting
       | published in Japan?
        
         | thriftwy wrote:
         | I believe that the English (American) situation is quite bad
         | comparatively. I've seen complaints that Stanislav Lem is still
         | translated to English in very spotty fashion, and quality of
         | translations is mediocre.
         | 
         | The Witcher has finished airing the 2nd season but I wonder if
         | there's a proper translation of original book series into
         | English.
         | 
         | On the other hand, English beats any other language by the
         | amount of original content by an order of magnitude.
        
           | xwolfi wrote:
           | What do you mean by "amount of original content": English has
           | lots of native speakers and is the official language of many
           | countries, and I admit the amount of stuff we publish in
           | French is smaller (albeit the quality or focus is very
           | different and I cant find some angles of analysis in English
           | that are trivial in French), I can't believe the quantity of
           | Chinese output would be lower for instance: it's not the same
           | quality and doesnt focus on the same subjects, but it's a lot
           | of people talking and writing about lots of stuff, for a lot
           | longer, no?
        
             | causality0 wrote:
             | _I can 't believe the quantity of Chinese output would be
             | lower for instance: it's not the same quality and doesnt
             | focus on the same subjects, but it's a lot of people
             | talking and writing about lots of stuff, for a lot longer,
             | no?_
             | 
             | You forget how impoverished the vast majority of Chinese
             | speakers have been for the history of the printed word. The
             | US by itself still publishes more original works every year
             | than China, though it's a shrinking gap.
        
           | canjobear wrote:
           | Michael Kandel's translations of Stanislaw Lem are excellent.
        
         | jboynyc wrote:
         | This is something cultural sociologists study. See for instance
         | https://www.thomasfranssen.net/sociology-of-culture though I'm
         | sure there are more recent examples as well.
        
       | barry-cotter wrote:
       | I would not recommend reading this article. In the time it would
       | take you to read it you could read a short story from the website
       | it mentions, Words Without Borders, which publishes translated
       | fiction and poetry.
       | 
       | This is a good story.
       | 
       | https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2022-09/sky-of-...
        
         | philips wrote:
         | Is that the right story? I think is the url.
         | 
         | https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2020-05/may-202...
        
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       (page generated 2022-09-24 23:01 UTC)