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Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.I gave my French tutor a book by the Douglas Hofstadter, Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language[1]. A book that deals with this very challenge. French is such a beautiful language that translations of poetic French involves a number of compromises.[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ton-Beau-Marot-Praise-Language/dp/046...
It will mostly lose it, yes (like explaining a joke).Because it's not just that a word exists in some language X that doesn't exist in language Y (you can always explain the word's general meaning with a complete phrase or two).
The most important part is rather having that notion in the language X as a handy thing to use -- and thus being able to shape concepts and phrases around it, and sharing an instant common recognition for that notion with others.
That said, there are several very good books on the subtleties of translation and language concepts in general, but one I suggest for the HN crowd would be "Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language" by Douglas R. Hofstadter (of "Godel, Escher, Bach" fame).
http://www.amazon.com/Ton-Beau-Marot-Praise-Language/dp/0465...
That it can be cumbersome for an expat, doesn't mean it's not a broadening experience and an intellectual delight.For broadening experience, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/language-and-bias/
And for intellectual delight, see: http://www.amazon.com/Le-Ton-Beau-De-Marot/dp/0465086454 http://books.google.gr/books/about/Experiences_in_Translatio...