[ur-whale]

Yeah, I've read all of Pratchett in English, and read one or two in German and French.

The French version, much effort went into it, and it is very good indeed, but nowhere near the original.

Some attempts at translating Pratchett's humor fall rather flat or completely miss the point of the original puns.

[mcv]

If you want a really good translation of something: the Dutch translation of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien himself praised it[0]. Max Schuchart rewrote a lot of things completely to get the exact same vibe across to Dutch people that English-speakers would get from reading the English versions.

It depends less on puns, though. Those are always hard to translate. The Dutch translation (the one book I've read the translation of) Terry Pratchett is okay, but not brilliant.

[0] Edit: I thought Tolkien praised it. I'm sure I read that somewhere ages ago. Wikipedia tells a different story: that Tolkien hated it. Personally I think it's genius that names with a clear English vibe (like many hobbit names) get translated to names with a similarly Dutch vibe. Schuchart did not mess with the Elvish or other other languages as far as I know.

[noirscape]

Tolkien was initially critical of the Dutch translation of LOTR, complaining that many of the nonclemature were too localized to his original liking[0].

That said, from what I understand, Tolkien would later change his mind after the original Swedish translator took even more liberties, which provoked him enough to write an official translation style guide, and in retrospective light apparently the Dutch translation would mostly end up conforming to those guidelines.

The entire thing is pretty curious given the fact that if you want to get down to it, the framing devices of Lord of the Rings is that it is an alledged translation of a book called "The Red Book of Westmarch". Tolkien himself took liberties with this supposed translation, which is why many of the place names have some form of "common" English name, to make them more palatable to English readers. It's pretty interesting to see him then take offense at other translations.

[0]: As someone who fell in love with Tolkien's work from the Dutch translation - eh, it's fine? Most stuff is fairly faithfully and accurately translated. The main issue is that the translator was an even bigger fan of purple prose than Tolkien and occasionally used German roots for certain words. Most of the literal translations used are translated to what amounts to kinda formal, stiff Dutch but others flow fairly well. The biggest difference is probably the title which is something closer to "In the grasp of the Ring", which... might be more accurate to describe the events of the book. It's hardly about the Lord of the Rings himself after all.

[mcv]

"In de Ban van de Ring" has roughly the same rhythm as "The Lord of the Rings" (triplets). "De Heer der Ringen", while a more literal translation, has a different feel to me. But maybe that's because I'm too use to the original translation.

[noirscape]

I agree with you; I think it's because of 2 things.

1. De Heer der Ringen sounds very formal. It's because of both the choice of "Heer", which is a literal translation of Lord but is more commonly used to describe an old, respectable man. (The connecting word of "der" only adds to it, given "der" isn't often used nowadays.)

2. "In de ban van X" also nicely doubles as a Dutch saying; being in de ban of something means being enthralled by it. Which fits well with the overall motive of temptations that the ring provokes in those around it.

[bombcar]

There was a translation that caused Tolkien to write a guide to translating the Lord of the Rings - it’s worth reading to get a feel for what he wanted.

Of course Tolkien was a linguist so he could understand translation difficulties even in languages he didn’t speak. He went so far as to add fictional translation difficulties to his own story.