Hi! My name is Saad

[Saad Hopkins]

Привет, и спасибо за то, чтобы иметь меня. 

My name is Saad. I don't speak much Russian, but my mom does. I have 
joined this list at the suggestion of Julia Hon, a fellow member of the 
David Foster Wallace list. I hope my ignorance of certain issues doesn't 
upset anyone, nor do I hope you look down upon me. I'm very interested in 
translation, and I'm currently taking a class at Seattle Central Community 
College on the art of writing the research paper.

For my topic I have chosen 'Foreign
Language in Translation' and would like to hear from anyone who may
have any expertise -or otherwise- in this subject; specifically, I
would like to hear from people who have had to translate from one
language into English, and may have come across the difficulty of
translating puns. My official topic/ thesis statement is this:

"Everyday hundreds of foreign literatures from all corners of the
earth are turning up in the English language. But not all languages
lend themselves easily to it. Some languages are obviously FAR more
difficult to translate than others. Take a language like Wolof (West
African), or even Mandarin; the minor details, such as play on words,
double entendres, and especially puns, cannot match meaning word for
word, as can say Dutch, or French. What are the gains and losses when
translating foreign literature into English, and which languages lend
themselves to our tongue easier than others? And on what sort of
criteria should the decision of whether or not to omit a passage
because of its "untraslatability" be based? I intend (or intend to
try, anyhow) to tackle these issues and hopefully answer some of these
questions in my research paper on 'Foreign Language Literature in
Translation: The Gains and Losses'.

In some ways it's a tall order, but I felt it would be good to have
interviews with several people as a part of my "sources". If anyone
has detailed information based on past experiences in this topic, I
would love to interview you either in person (if you live in
Seattle), or via email (if you live in Namibia).

Большое спасибо, и пожалуйста извините моего shitty русского. 

Saad

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