https://rus.proz.com/forum/literature_poetry/223288-higher_word_counts_for_literature.html
This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings

Перевод как искусство и бизнес » Literature / Poetry »
Higher word counts for literature?
Автор темы: Phil Hand
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
Китай
Local time: 00:37
китайский => английский
Apr 23, 2012

I generally translate technical and business stuff, and I've found that the ratio of source to target is remarkably stable across a number of genres. My English word counts are reliably 2/3 of source character count (with some exceptions and reasonable variation, of course).
I just translated a short story for a competition (that I learned about through Proz, thanks Romina!), and the ratio is higher, more like 75 words to each hundred characters. Does this happen to anyone else? Does liter... See more
I generally translate technical and business stuff, and I've found that the ratio of source to target is remarkably stable across a number of genres. My English word counts are reliably 2/3 of source character count (with some exceptions and reasonable variation, of course).
I just translated a short story for a competition (that I learned about through Proz, thanks Romina!), and the ratio is higher, more like 75 words to each hundred characters. Does this happen to anyone else? Does literature always need more words? Or is it just that I'm inexperienced and so I've been too wordy? ▲ Collapse
 
Jack Doughty
Jack Doughty  Identity Verified
Великобритания
Local time: 17:37
русский => английский
+ ...
Памяти
Russian to English, about the same Apr 23, 2012

I have done a lot of engineering and commercial texts, in which I find the Russian word count is about 70% of the English. I am currently translating a novel, so I compared word counts on two chapters of it and found the result was about the same, within 1-2%.
 
Denise Phelps
Denise Phelps  Identity Verified
Local time: 18:37
испанский => английский
+ ...
Sound reasonable to me Apr 23, 2012

I translate mostly academic research and, as in your case, the English versions are generally shorter. In my language pair (SP-EN), this is generally because the writers use a lot of formulas which would be considered padding in English academic writing, for example "with respect to XXXX, the values obtained were" instead of just "the values obtained for XXXX were". I don't have much experience translating literature, but I'd be a lot less happy about defining sections of a literary text as un... See more
I translate mostly academic research and, as in your case, the English versions are generally shorter. In my language pair (SP-EN), this is generally because the writers use a lot of formulas which would be considered padding in English academic writing, for example "with respect to XXXX, the values obtained were" instead of just "the values obtained for XXXX were". I don't have much experience translating literature, but I'd be a lot less happy about defining sections of a literary text as unnecessary padding and pruning away accordingly, so I would expect a literary translation to reflect the length of the original more closely, at least in my language pair. ▲ Collapse
 
Hamish Young
Hamish Young  Identity Verified
Новая Зеландия
Local time: 04:37
китайский => английский
I think it always does for Chinese, anyway Apr 24, 2012

Definitely in my experience of Chinese to English literature translation, the ratio of source characters to target words tends to approach 1:1, whereas in technical translation it can get very close to 2:1. For translating ancient Chinese, ratios of 1:2 or 1:3 or higher are common.

So I don't think you're getting too wordy there, but it just shows that you need to be careful about accepting source character rates for literature translation (and hopefully avoid ancient Chinese trans... See more
Definitely in my experience of Chinese to English literature translation, the ratio of source characters to target words tends to approach 1:1, whereas in technical translation it can get very close to 2:1. For translating ancient Chinese, ratios of 1:2 or 1:3 or higher are common.

So I don't think you're getting too wordy there, but it just shows that you need to be careful about accepting source character rates for literature translation (and hopefully avoid ancient Chinese translation altogether!). ▲ Collapse
 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
Китай
Local time: 00:37
китайский => английский
Автор темы
Hi, Hamish Apr 26, 2012

Long time no see.

Thanks all for your input. I'm going to go through another couple of drafts of this anyway, but that advice helps me feel a bit less worried.
 


To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:

Модератор(ы) этого форума
NancyLynn[Call to this topic]
Maria Castro[Call to this topic]
Fernanda Rocha[Call to this topic]

You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request »

Higher word counts for literature?


Translation news
» The Imperative of Accessibility in Multimedia Localization
(0 comments)
» Denmark Says Post-Editing Is Not Translation
(4 comments)
» How Question Answering Can Transform AI Translation Evaluation
(0 comments)


Forum rules
Help and orientation




CafeTran Espresso
You've never met a CAT tool this clever!

Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer. Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools. Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free

Buy now! »
LinguaCore
AI Translation at Your Fingertips

The underlying LLM technology of LinguaCore offers AI translations of unprecedented quality. Quick and simple. Add a human linguistic review at the end for expert-level quality at a fraction of the cost and time.

More info »