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  • Finn: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Finn.

  • Neil: and I'm Neil. Hello. Today we are talking about Shakespeare.

  • Finn: Oh yes... to be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler...

  • Neil: Yeah. OK, thank you. Thank you very much, Finn.

  • But what does that famous Shakespeare line actually mean, Finn?

  • Finn: Yeah, well... it's quite hard to explain actually.

  • The English in Shakespeare's work is quite difficult.

  • Neil: Well, a Shakespeare festival in Oregon in the United States wants to change all of that.

  • They want to pay writers

  • they want to commission - what they call "translations" of Shakespeare's plays.

  • Now we usually use the word translation of course to talk about

  • changing words and sentences from one language to another.

  • But these writers have been commissioned to translate Shakespearean English into plain English.

  • Finn: So Shakespeare in easy, plain English... You know, I'm not sure I really like that idea.

  • Neil: Well, you're not the only one, Finn. We will talk about that in a moment

  • but first, as usual, we have our quiz question and it's about Shakespeare and translation.

  • What was the first language that Shakespeare's plays were translated into? Was it:

  • a) French b) German or c) Portuguese What do you think?

  • Finn: You know, I really have no idea on this one. I'm going to say b) German.

  • Neil: We'll see if you're right at the end of the programme. But now we're going to hear

  • from two Shakespeare experts speaking to the BBC.

  • First, Andrew Dickinson.

  • He is the author of "Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe".

  • Finn: In his travels around the world - around the globe

  • did he find many translations of Shakespeare?

  • Andrew Dickinson: Someone's translated Hamlet into Klingon.

  • And you know, he exists in all of these different places and all of these different forms

  • and I suppose that what really struck me

  • while working on my book and travelling around the world talking to people about Shakespeare

  • is that he is so multifarious - he exists in all of these places.

  • It feels sometimes that we in the English-speaking world are only just catching up with this.

  • Finn: Shakespeare expert Andrew Dickinson,

  • who has travelled the world for his new book and knows about many translations,

  • even one from out of this world!

  • Neil: Yes, he says someone has even translated Hamlet into Klingon.

  • Now that's the language spoken by aliens in Star Trek

  • which is of course a science fiction TV series, it's not a real language.

  • Finn: Let's get back to the real world, Neil. Andrew Dickinson says that what really impressed him

  • what really struck him - while working on his new book and travelling around the world

  • talking about Shakespeare is that Shakespeare is so multifarious.

  • Multifarious - that's quite a difficult word.

  • Neil: Yes, it is. Well in plain English it means that there are many different types.

  • There are many different translations, many different kinds of Shakespeare.

  • Finn: He's multifarious.

  • Neil: Finn! We're using plain English in this programme, like the people in Oregon

  • who want to translate Shakespeare into plain English. That will make his plays easier to understand.

  • Finn : And that's a good thing.

  • But there has also been strong criticism about this from academics

  • who study Shakespeare as well as from people on social mediaon Facebook and Twitter.

  • They think it's a bad idea.

  • Neil: Our next Shakespeare expert is Greg Doran.

  • He is the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

  • He's done productions outside Britain.

  • Where did he do a production of the Shakespeare play, Merchant of Venice?

  • Here he is talking about the difficulty of translation.

  • Greg Doran: I think the difficulty with a translation is that it simply translates

  • the sense and there's a lot more going on in the language of Shakespeare's plays.

  • I remember once doing a production of Merchant of Venice in Japan

  • and I was askedwe were having a new translation done - and I was asked if I wanted

  • the translation for meaning, for pace or for poetry

  • and that's the difficulty. You've got to find all three somehow together.

  • Finn: Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

  • He was doing a Shakespeare production in Japan.

  • He says that the difficulty with translation is that it only translates the sense

  • it is only the general meaning.

  • But he says that there's more than that.

  • Neil: Yes! They were having a translation done and he was asked if he wanted the translation

  • for meaning or for pacethat's about the speed of the lines in the play

  • or was the poetry of the words important?

  • Finn: And his answer was that you've got to find all three somehow together.

  • It is not just one thing.

  • Neil: He says that there is a lot going onthere is a lot happening - in the language of Shakespeare's plays.

  • Finn: And so a simple translation of the words into plain English isn't really... Shakespeare.

  • And I think it's time to answer our quiz question.

  • Neil: Yes, if you remember, it's about translations of Shakespeare.

  • What was the first language that Shakespeare's plays were translated into?

  • Was it: a) French b) German c) Portuguese

  • Finn: I said b) German, which I'll admit was a guess.

  • Neil: And that is the right answer.

  • Finn: Fantastic!

  • Neil: Apparently Shakespeare's plays were translated into German

  • as early as the first decade of the 17th Century.

  • And that's all for now.

  • Please do join us again for 6 Minute English.

  • Finn: To be or not be...

  • Neil: Yes, OK. Thanks, Finn.

  • Both: Bye.

Finn: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Finn.

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BBC 6分英語 2015年10月29日 - 平易な英語でシェイクスピア (BBC 6 Minute English October 29, 2015 - Shakespeare in plain English)

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