Hi,
I’d like to start a new discussion about a topic that was originally dealt with in this thread: http://www.lingq.com/learn/pl/forum/2/14400/.
One of the most interesting books for (would-be) polyglots is probably Kató Lomb’s “Polyglot. How I learn languages”, which is downloadable from free at http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/tesl-ej.ej45.fr1.pdf.
Brazilian member Magri_Marcos is thinking of translating it into Portuguese and I could translate it into Italian, even if this goes against a translator’s professional ethics, i.e. never translate from a translation of the original text to avoid further losses of meaning (since no translation can convey 100% of the meanings conveyed by the original text).
However, before I start actually considering undertaking this task, some problem remains:
copyright: Kató Lomb died few years ago, so her book is freely downloadable, but not in the public domain. Someone (preferably from the LingQ HQ) should contact the provider of the pdf translation (if the original publisher is not known) and ask for permission to share “Polyglot” here;
interest: how many people would be interested in reading a Portuguese or Italian translation of this? Is translating and recording the whole book a worth considering idea?
I’m looking for some feed-back,
Michele
Michele, I hate to say it, but since you’ve asked: I am pretty sure you have to get permission to do the translation as well. Several years ago I was told that even for one’s private use permission was needed for a translation–I had translated a French SF novel for my brother, and mentioned it to someone giving a lecture about translating. It was long ago (almost 30 years) and I’m not a lawyer and so can’t say, but you ought to check. This was probably in regard to U.S. law, but I think it in this case conformed w/ international law (“The Berne Convention” comes to mind).
Don’t want to criticize, but it seems it would not worth the efforts you’ll apply for doing that. It is rather large book, and I doubt many users will maintain their interest after reading several initial pages/lessons. Also take in account it’s a book for polyglots/translators/interpreters, what means it is very “industry-specific”, it is nor belletristic literature nor very famous book. So, you probably will spend a lot of time to create the entire collection, but get a humble reward in terms of Lingqs points. I doubt this book would be popular even in English section.
Anyway it’s a great book, I adopted some of Kato’s ideas.
@Ernie: both I and several of my mates at the faculty for translators and interpreters translated contemporary literature for our degree theses, and nobody ever told us an authorization was needed for such translations.
@Niksa: I also think it would take a long time, but the book is not sooo long as far as I remember. Anyway, it would still be worthy to try and contact the publisher to ask for the authorization to share the English version of the book.
Mike, Well, that was told to me by a lawyer. Granted it was in the U.S. and it was almost 30 years ago. However, I have read the same online, since. According to these people, translation is a special case. . . . It does sound odd, and I certainly hope I’m mistaken, but that is what I have heard and read. . . . Perhaps your school had permission to do such things.
@Mike: "…both I and several of my mates at the faculty for translators and interpreters translated contemporary literature for our degree theses, and nobody ever told us an authorization was needed for such translations. "
Okay, but that was just for purely educational purposes, right?
I’m guessing that nobody (apart from the markers) were ever going to read these translations?
I would imagine that anyone is entirely free the translate any work - provided that it’s not going to be shared with other people or made available in public. (Of course this would still rule out sharing at LingQ, unfortunately…)
No, Jay, many of these translations are available at the university library and some on an internet database as well. I refuse to that all our teachers were so ignorant or that they consciously didn’t respect the law.
I would ask for permission. I also agree with the comment that relatively few learners take audio books. And if they do , the interest dies off after a chapter or two.
@Steve: in the other forum, Alex seemed to express some interest for LingQ to have that book available to learners here. That’s why I decided to bring the topic to everybody’s attention, but apparently it was a bad idea, as many of my ideas seem to be.
Those of us that do read audiobooks at LingQ would be thrilled to have the book translated. I’ve read it in English and would definitely read it in Portuguese and might, down the road, read it in Italian.
I would read it in Italian, I always wanted to read it, and it would be better practice for me to read it in another language. What languages is it currently translated into online?
And as for the books, I find them far more interesting than any other lessons. I enjoyed Steve’s book in a couple of languages, and I read Pinocchio here on LingQ as well.
I have just finished reading Steve’s book(Il linguista) in Italian and trying to read it in Chinese now.
Reading interesting and motivating books like this is a wonderful means of learning.
I would not miss to read both Italian and Portuguese versions of Lomb Kató’s book (although I have not yet picked up Portuguese language :)).
Of course I have the paperback version in Hungarian and read it a few years ago.
@djc463: Somewhere on the net I have seen it in Russian some time ago. Unfortunately I don’t have the link.
mikebond, it is not that no one is interested in audio books in general, or in Lomb’s book in particular. It is just that relatively few of our users choose to study from audio books. Your original question was “how many people would be interested?” “is it worth doing?”. Well I think the numbers will be small, very small.
If you can get permission to put the already translated English version up then it might be of interest to some users, but I don’t think there would be enough demand on LingQ for a Portuguese or Italian version to merit someone spending time translating the whole book.
de hecho yo estaria interesado en esas traducciones del libro al italiano y/o al portugues
se que soy uno de esos pocos que estarian interesados y que tal vez no amerite tanto esfuerzo, como al parecer todos piensan, mas en lo personal no tendria mucho problema en intentar traducirlo al español siempre y cuando no hayan problemas de derechos de autor, por supuesto (soy alergico a las demandas xD)
