A Hearth Library collection
Word for Word
Translators on their craft, from Cicero to the King James Bible and beyond
Should a translator carry the words or the sense? Writers have argued it for two thousand years, in prefaces, letters and handbooks. A companion to the Word for Word games on Hearth Games, which use the library's own checked translations to match phrases and words of the original to their English.
Games
- Daily Line Translate three real sentences a day, phrase by phrase.
- Match the Phrase Pair phrases of the original with their English.
- Find the Word Tap the Greek or Latin word that means this.
- What Does It Mean? Choose what a Greek or Latin word means in its text.
- Close or Free? Word for word, a century old, or plain English today?
- False Friends Does the Latin or Greek word mean what it looks like?
- Reading Order Read Classical Chinese the way Japanese officials did.
Sources on the way
No sources are translated yet. These are planned, in rough date order.
- 46 BCENot word for word, but as an orator
Cicero, Rome, Latin.
- about 19 BCEThe faithful translator
Horace, Rome, Latin.
- 395Sense for sense
Jerome, Bethlehem, Latin.
- 600sFive kinds of words not to translate
Xuanzang (as reported by Zhou Dunyi), Chang'an, Classical Chinese.
- about 890Sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense
King Alfred, Wessex, Old English.
- 1530Look at the mouth of the mother in the house
Martin Luther, Coburg, German.
- 1611The Translators to the Reader
Miles Smith and the King James translators, London, English.
- 1680Metaphrase, paraphrase and imitation
John Dryden, London, English.
- 1791Three laws of translation
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Edinburgh, English.
- 1898Faithful, clear and elegant
Yan Fu, Tianjin, Classical Chinese.