Translation talk:Tales of Rabbi Nachman/12

Nissimnanach's Translation Notes
Bs"d I finished repairing the translation today, with the help of Anon1's draft. My goals were: accuracy (to the Yiddish original, and relying on the Hebrew perush secondarily), readability, and enjoyability.  Paragraphing was done in in accordance with the paragraphing in ,ספר סיפורי מעשיות Keren Hadfasah D’Chasidei Breslev, Jerusalem, 2002, and I numbered the paragraphs and made 9 sections to mark major sections of the story.

17 Cheshvan 5772 Yartzeit of Saba Na Nach Israel Dov z"l z"yaa Nissimnanach (talk) 04:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)Nissimnanach

Update: Today I have finished (for now) a thorough, careful reworking of the text to conform more directly to the Yiddish original (with still some additions/modifications from the Hebrew where they are helpful). Nissimnanach (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2013 (UTC)Nissimnanach

MosheMeirNNNNM Notes
bs'd Shalom achi. Appreciate your dedication to hafatzah and integrity of translation. Mechilah for slip into giving priority to readability. BeH, I will be more careful, bli neder.

Re: Prayer Leader vs. Master of Prayer-- prayer leader is shaliach tzibur--implies that one is leading the prayers of a quorum, but does not convey his unique mastery in prayer.

In all due respect, it seems that you are not consistent with your own guidelines. For instance: The Prayer Leader kept doing so, time after time attracting his people and taking them out of settled areas, as mentioned, until an impression was made on the world and the thing began to be known,

That would be in Hebrew: הבעל התפילה המשיך לעשות כן, פעם אחר פעם למשוך אנשיו ולהוציא אותם מהישובים

I'd translate this phrase as: And so, the Ba'al Tefilah would constantly be occupied with this matter, every time drawing more people close [to Hashem], taking them out of civilization ... Also, you usually omit places the instances of "כנ'ל" and "הנ'ל" because it really is burdensome in English. So too when there is extra use of "רק" and other words that are not intrinsic to the meaning, but very much detract from the flow and make the reading much more burdensome.

I'm not trying to be picayune, ch'v. I just want to have clarity on your balancing of literal vs flow.

Chazak ve'ematz!

Why a selective problem with idioms?
Achi! You have a problem with "heart to heart" as the translation for דבר על לבו and "sink in" for להיכנס לאוזניו, but not the same concern for "he would so spin the person around with talk" as the translation for מרמה אותם בדברים. So, again please clarify. If "spin the person around" is ok, then should not other approximate idioms that flow better and are more interesting in English be equally acceptable? Looking forward to your clarification.