Assignment 2

Before starting my translation I read the text twice, trying to figure out what the text is about. During the translation, I used Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (8th edition) but unfortunately I couldn't find solution to all problems in the text, so I looked on the Internet.
Text is not easy to translate,I would say hard 8 on a scale from 1 to 10 so the job must be taken very seriously. A person needs to do a little of research before starting translation, there are some words in the text to which you must find an equivalent in your own language. E.g.
- Chain gang ( OALD definition: a group of prisoners chained together and forced to work) literal translation in Serbian would be: lancima vezana banda. But then we come to another problem: Why would anyone listen the chain gang? What is there to listen?
- Fork Falls Road might be another issue since it is the name of the street.  If I were the translator, I would leave it this way, without transcribing it.
- Another possible issue might be a description of a person as there are some constructions such as "two gray crossed eyes which are turned inward so sharply that they seem to be exchanging with each other..."
- Some may also find narration ( 2nd person narration) as one of possible problems as the entire text must be translated as if he ( the narrator) is speaking to us (readers).
Since it would we impossible to translate the entire text literally,  translation techniques, such as replacement (substitution), changing word order, replacement using antonymy,...must be used.

Truman Capote, Hladnokrvno ubistvo

Vlasnik farme River Veli, četrdesetosmogodisnji Herbert William Clutter,na osnovu nedavnog medicinskog pregleda za polisu osiguranja, znao je da je izuzetno dobrog zdravlja. Sa naočarima bez okvira i prosečnom visinom  oko 178cm, gospodin Clutter bio je oličenje pravog muškarca. Širokih  ramena, još uvek tamne kose,  četvrtaste vilice I samouverenog  pogleda koji je zadrzao svoju mladolikost, a njegovi zubi, dovoljno jaki da slome orah, još uvek su bili očuvani.Imao je 70kg, isto kao I onog dana kada je zavrsio Univerzitet u Kanzasu, gde je studirao poljoprivredu. Nije da je bio bogatiji od najbogatijeg u Holkomu- gospodina Taylora Jonesa, komšije i vlasnika ranča, ali je svakako bio najpoznatiji stanovnik svog mesta i istaknuta ličnost sedišta najbližeg okruga, Garden Sitija, u kome je upravljao gradjevinskim odborom za izgradnju nedavno završene  Prve metodističke crkve, zdanja vrednog osamdesethiljada dolara.  Kao predsednik kanzaških zemljoradničkih zadruga,  bio je nadaleko poznat i poštovan  među poljoprivrednicima srednjeg zapada, pošto se njegovo ime moglo čuti u pojedinim vašingtonskim uredima, gde je za vreme Ajzenhauerove vlade bio član Poljoprivrednog odbora.

Assignment 1 (author, text)

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Before I started translating I read text carefully several times in order to get the main idea, to try to conclude what the story is about. Once I read it, I ran across some difficulties as it was impossible for me to find out the plot of the story just by reading this small excerpt since I did not read this book before. Therefore, I looked for all information I could find on internet and wikipedia.com offered some really good stuff. I read a short biography of the author of the book, found out all about the genre and read a summary. It seemed enough for me and I started translating.

Before writing it down, I tried to figure out how this translation should look like, where is the boundary when it comes to translation and how much freedom I, as interpreter, actually have. 

The moment I started translating, some difficulties appeared. First of all, I did not know whether I should transcribe character's name or not. Then, there were names of places such as River Valley Farm, Garden City, Holcomb which confused me even more. My poor experience in translating made me leave them the way they are. 

It took me a while to convert his pounds into kilos, his "feet" into meters, etc.

The sentences were long, it was hard joining small parts of it and trying to make sense of it all. It was quite challenging translating those institutions such as Kansas Conference of Farm Organizations,  Federal Farm Credit Board, etc. 

The text itself was not that hard to translate, there were no difficult words, scientific terms, idioms, etc., so I would grade it with 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. 

All in all, I managed to finish it. But I definitely expect next time to be way better.