Strategies for Translating

Poetry
Strategies of Translation
• 1. Phonemic Translation: attempts to recreate the sounds of
the SL in the TL transferring the meaning at the same time.
• 2. Literal translation: involves word-for-word translation.
• 3. Verse-to-prose translation: producing the TL as prose
instead of the ST which is a poem. This method has some
weakness, the biggest of which is the lose of the beauty of
the original poem.
• 4. Free verse translation: with this method the translator
may be able to achieve the accurate equivalents in the TL at
the expense of the literary value.
Translation of Metaphor in Poetry
• 1. Reproducing the same image in the TL.
• 2. Replacing the image in the SL with a standard TL image.
• 3. Translating metaphors as similes.
• 4. Conversion of metaphor into sense (explanation).
• 5. Deletion.
 Practice
When You are Old by William Butler Yeats ….. Translate into Kurdish

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;