Scarcity of good translators for literary translation

Vietnam has bought foreign books which can help readers access to valuable publications in the world; therefore, translators can make a fortune. However, the Southeast Asian country has been facing scarcity of good translators for literary translation.

 

Some well-known translators at a talk in the Book Street (PHoto: SGGP)
Some well-known translators at a talk in the Book Street (PHoto: SGGP)
That was content of the talk “ Situation and importance of translation to the country’s growth and integration” organized lately in HCMC, Deputy Director of the Tre Publishing House Nguyen Thanh Nam said that more and more Vietnamese people have built their reading habit for the last ten years.
Of 59 publishing house and book companies countrywide, many of them have half or 80 percent of books translated from foreign languages. This has shown that readers want to read translated books; hence, translators play an important role in the sector.
Nevertheless, Deputy Director Nam pointed out that there has been an abundance and shortage of translators. More and more youngsters who graduated from foreign language universities want to try in the new field; however, they can’t meet translation demand.
As Vietnam is on the way to develop, young people should read more scientific books and books in their majors to contribute to the country’s growth but just a few translators can translate such books, according to Mr. Nam.
Furthermore, English translators are abundant whereas there has been a serious shortage of translators of these other languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Polish.
For instance, of 400 annually-published literary books of the Tre Publishing House, half of them are translated books and 70 percent of them are translated from English while the remaining of 20 percent is Japanese. French, Russian and Polish.
Mentioning translation quality, Deputy Director of Alpha Books Tran Thi Khuyen revealed she has been sometimes irritated by carelessness of some translators who transferred the book to groups of translators without re-check the book before submitting to the publishing house.
Her reveal didn’t surprise participants in the talk because there have been some scandals in translation sector recently. Some translators have been using google translate software leading to silly translation mistakes.
Last but not least, famous translator Tran Tien Cao Dang complained that many young people are good at English but they are weak at Vietnamese. Translations have displayed a worrying poverty of using Vietnamese language amongst young translators though some of them tried to study more, said Mr. Dang.

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