Ann’s answer to “Hello. I wondered if you were aware of the fact that in the french translation of Ancillary, Breq i…” > Likes and Comments
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Probably because French (and Spanish, and many others) has only masculine and feminine forms, there is no neutral form. On the other hand the translator should contact you instead of deciding on their own.
Yes, that's a problem with a lot of languages. It's a problem with English too, of course, when it comes to talking about people, but in Spanish (and in Italian and French and German) adjectives are also gendered, and some titles that refer to people are that aren't in English (Captain, Lieutenant, etc).
I dealt with that problem in English by defaulting to feminine, and honestly I prefer that translators do so as well, whenever possible. Of course, they're the experts in their languages, and I'm not--but something this big and basic, I have to admit, it bugs me.
In Polish almost everything is gendered, and the tnanslator chose to use feminine forms wenever not stated differently. It means Breq speaks about herself as a female (for instance when someone says "I did something" it‘s perfectly gender-neutral in English, but gendered in Polish), and it seems the only logical way to do it.
I loved Ancillary Justice in English. I read the first chapter of the French version because I wanted to buy it for my mom who doesn't read English. And then, the book fell from my hands. I could not read it. This Breq using male speach about herself is just not good. From the first pages, it makes you think about her as a guy. It robes the reader of the possibility of choosing what gender one wants for her body.
And it's not credible because at the beggining of the book, Breq explains that she needs to appear as human as possible. So she poses as Radchaai using male speach about herself ?
At first, I read this and thought, "No," but now I see why it was done. As a native English speaker, I still find the gendering of objects so odd. I have French friends who are non-binary and they struggle with this. I believe there is a push towards more gender-neutral nouns, which will have an interesting impact on the development of the French language in the future.
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Godric
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Mar 07, 2016 07:13AM
Probably because French (and Spanish, and many others) has only masculine and feminine forms, there is no neutral form. On the other hand the translator should contact you instead of deciding on their own.
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Yes, that's a problem with a lot of languages. It's a problem with English too, of course, when it comes to talking about people, but in Spanish (and in Italian and French and German) adjectives are also gendered, and some titles that refer to people are that aren't in English (Captain, Lieutenant, etc). I dealt with that problem in English by defaulting to feminine, and honestly I prefer that translators do so as well, whenever possible. Of course, they're the experts in their languages, and I'm not--but something this big and basic, I have to admit, it bugs me.
In Polish almost everything is gendered, and the tnanslator chose to use feminine forms wenever not stated differently. It means Breq speaks about herself as a female (for instance when someone says "I did something" it‘s perfectly gender-neutral in English, but gendered in Polish), and it seems the only logical way to do it.
I loved Ancillary Justice in English. I read the first chapter of the French version because I wanted to buy it for my mom who doesn't read English. And then, the book fell from my hands. I could not read it. This Breq using male speach about herself is just not good. From the first pages, it makes you think about her as a guy. It robes the reader of the possibility of choosing what gender one wants for her body. And it's not credible because at the beggining of the book, Breq explains that she needs to appear as human as possible. So she poses as Radchaai using male speach about herself ?
At first, I read this and thought, "No," but now I see why it was done. As a native English speaker, I still find the gendering of objects so odd. I have French friends who are non-binary and they struggle with this. I believe there is a push towards more gender-neutral nouns, which will have an interesting impact on the development of the French language in the future.
