Voix-Elorn, les Lettres au lycée de l'Elorn

Here is the translation of a Utopian poem written byThomas More in his bookUtopia :

Mon Roi et conquérant d'Utopia en mon nom,

Un Prince avec beaucoup de renommée et une gloire éternelle,

M'a fait une île qui n'en était pas une avant,

Pleinement remplie de richesses de ce monde,

Avec plaisir et réconfort.

Je suis un de tous les autres sans philosophie,

On a formé beaucoup de villes philosophiques.

Et à mon avis je n'ai rien de dangereux à transmettre,

Je suis prêt au mieux pour recevoir,

De tout mon cœur.

• I met some difficulties to choose the correct translation when there were different meanings for the same word, to understand the text and Thomas More's message. Finally I had some problems with the sound of the sentences translated in French.

• I have liked the meeting with the two American teachers. It was interesting to discover their job.

THE WORK OF TRANSLATION

Last week, we met two American translators. They explained to us how to translate a text, and chose the example of Utopia written by Sir Thomas More.

This is an extract of our translation from English to French:

I one of all other without philosophy

Moi ,le seul de tous ceux sans philosophie,

Have shaped for many a philosophical city.

J'ai façonné pour beaucoup de gens une ville philosophique.

That work was very interesting because we saw how important the choice of the words was.

The most essential element in the translation is that we must translate the feelings of the writer more than the words themselves and it's not a good idea to use websites such as Google Translator.

So, when you translate something, be assured to translate things properly, not words by words, but by thinking about what the author means.

Translation of «  Utopia »

Mon roi et conquérant du nomd'Utopus,

un princed'une grande renommée et de gloire immortelle,

a fait de moi une île qui n'existait pas auparavant,

abondante de richesse, de plaisir et de consolation.

Moi la seule de tous dépourvue de philosophie,

ai façonné pour le bon nombre d'entre eux une ville philosophique.

Et pour ma part je n'avais rien de dangereux à répandre

afin d'être prêt à accueillir de tout mon cœur.

Our difficulties

We had some difficulties to understand some words and even some sentences because the text was written in old English so we use the translation websites a lot.

The English syntax is not like the French one so we can't translate sentences word for word. So we often had to twist sentences in order to make it understandable. Sometimes it could be quite difficult.

Our opinion

We think the two American teachers' work was interesting. The fact that they travel a lot makes their jobvery enriching because they can meet and exchange with some authors before translating.

What we think about the meeting

Every words were difficult to translate because the sentences were not in French, so we had to change that. Moreover, the words were not in the right order.

It was very interesting. It feels like being translators and traveling around the world.

We can discover other countries like Canada or the United States. The two teachers' accents were different. It wasn't boring. They were nice and helped us to translate the text. It was a ludic moment.

Thanks to them, we discovered a new job we did not know about. We are famous because an article was published in the newspaper.

Moreover, we have discovered the Utopian alphabet and Thomas More's thrilling life.

The translation of an extract from Utopia

Difficulties...

The main difficulties were to translate unknown words or words that we had never seen before. To translate, we used "Reverso" or "Collins", but we know that it is not a very good translation... For example, when we type an English long sentence on the computer, the French translation is not correct. There are only a few words translated word by word but sometimes it means nothing.

Different translations...

Translation of the following sentence :

"Which verses the translator, according to his simple knowledge and mean understanding in the Utopian tongue, hath thus rudely in English."

• Google's translation' :

  “Qui par rapport au traducteur, selon sa connaissance simple et signifie la compréhension dans la langue utopique, Car ainsi grossièrement en anglais.”

• Our translation :

  “Quels vers le traducteur, selon sa simple connaissance et compréhension de la langue utopienne, peut il traduire en anglais.”

Translation :

Mon roi et conquérant Utopus de nom
Un prince d'une si grande renommée et d'une gloire immortelle,

M'a crée une île qui n'existait pas avant,

Remplis de toutes les riches connaissances du monde,

Avec plaisir et consolation.

Je suis l'un de ceux sans philosophie,

Qui ont, pour beaucoup, formés une île qui l'était,

Et je n'ai rien de dangereux à répondre,

Et si le mieux est de recevoir, je suis prêt,

Avec tout mon coeur.

We have changed some words which weren't really translable to make the sentences meaningful in French.

For example, we turned the sentence "full fraught with wordly wealth", into "remplis de toutes.. du monde" because we thought that knowledge was more important for Thomas More than material things like gold ...

The translation

Here is the translation of a Utopian poem written by Thomas More in his book Utopia :

Mon roi et conquérant Utopus de son nom,

Un prince de beaucoup de renommée et d'immortelle célébrité,

Ils ont fait de moi une île quand il n'y en avait point,

Pleine de richesse mondaine

Avec plaisir et réconfort

Moi,l'un de ceux sans philosophie

J'ai formé pour beaucoup une ville philosophique

Et je n'ai rien de dangereux à transmettre,

C'est tellement mieux de recevoir

Et j'y suis prêt,de tout mon cœur

There was no big problem with this translation although the last verse was a bit hard as it is written in a confusing way. But we found a translation that seemed correct to us, even if it is not.

We needed the help of a translator to find the meanings of some words in this poem, but it was not too difficult.