[Xmca-l] Re: Collective coordination of informal translations?

[mike cole]

Its a huge undertaking, David. If there is some way to break it into modest
sized chunks (modest =<800) perhaps xmaophiles could make a contribution en
mass, although the product would still require a smoothing hand at the end.
mike


On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:30 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Huw (or anyone else interested):
>
> Since early 2007 our group (which varies between four and eight people) has
> been translating everything Vygotsky ever wrote that has been published in
> Russian into the Korean language. We're pretty slow, because only two of us
> know any Russian at all, and what we do has to be checked against various
> machine translations and with the Russian professors at my school. We do
> about fifteen paragraphs a week, and I expect to be doing this for the rest
> of my life (I'm fifty five years old).
>
> Because my Korean is so poor, we produce English texts as a by-product--for
> discussion. We also produce "boxes" every two or three paragraphs to try to
> help the readers (mostly public school teachers in South Korea) understand
> the text better. Four volumes have already been published in Korea, with a
> fifth volume coming out this month. We are meeting today (in a few hours,
> actually) to proof the galleys.
>
> But...we need somebody who has the patience to edit the English into
> something usable by other xmca people, or maybe even posted on Anton
> Yasnitsky's Collected Works project, if that is still on. That means
> cutting the transitional translations and the Korean final
> product, eliminating boxes that are mostly concerned with aspects of
> teaching in Korean public schools, and tidying up my awful English prose.
> Russian is not strictly necessary, although I can easily imagine that we've
> made a mistake or two along the way.
>
> Martin did a heroic job with (most of) Thinking and Speech, and I have
> tried to do it myself a few times, but I find that I am a very poor editor
> of my own work; I form a very clear idea of what the text says in my own
> mind and I don't seem to be able to get the words on the page to say it any
> more. Fortunately, my collaborators can usually step in at this point and
> put it all in Korean for me--but that means that the English translation
> remains a partial, transitional structure, like a wing of English text
> around which Russian and Korean word meanings flow and lift.
>
> So...if you are really willing, I could send you some of the files. Here's
> what we've got so far.
>
> a) Thinking and Speech
> b) Tool and Sign
> c) History of the Development of the Higher Psychological Functions
> d) Imagination and Creativity in the Child
> e) Imagination and Creativity in the Adolescent
> f) Creativity and its Development in Childhood
> g) Lectures on Pedology (Lectures One, Two, and Three Complete).
>
> Warning--these files are very long. We estimate the Lectures on Pedology
> (seven lectures) will be around eight hundred pages when complete, and this
> is one of the shorter books.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
> On 5 June 2014 22:40, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Just wondering out loud a little: is anyone aware of collective efforts
> to
> > share informal efforts at translation, i.e. bits and pieces of larger
> texts
> > that have not made it through to official publications?
> >
> > I suspect once I get through the English writings pertaining to P.
> > Zinchenko, I may need to try and find time to learn some Russian.
> >
> > Best,
> > Huw
> >
>