For a consistent English bibliography on translation, go to: Mona Baker, ed.: Routledge Engcyclopedia of Translation Studies (London: Routlege, 1998). You can look through the table of contents with Google Book Search.
The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti (London:L Routledge, 2000, 2nd ed. 2004) contains some basic German texts on translation in English, like Walther Benjamin: Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers, 1923 (p. 15-25 in the Reader).
AND: Examples for the use of the word ‘translation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary: II. 2. a. trans. To turn from one language into another; ‘to change into another language retaining the sense’ (J.); to render; also, to express in other words, to paraphrase. (The chief current sense.)
a1300 Cursor M. 232 {Th}is ilk bok it es translate In to Inglis tong to rede. c1350 Will. Palerne 167 For he of frensche {th}is fayre tale ferst dede translate. c1385 CHAUCER L.G.W. 329 (Balade) Thow hast translatid the romauns of the rose. 1477 EARL RIVERS (Caxton) Dictes 2 It was translated out of latyn in to frenshe. 1589 PUTTENHAM Eng. Poesie I. xxxi. (Arb.) 75 Doctour Phaer one that..excellently well translated into English verse Heroicall certaine bookes of Virgils Æneidos. 1689-90 TEMPLE Ess. Poetry Wks. 1731 I. 241 The first Change of Poetry was made by translating it into Prose. 1693 DRYDEN Disc. Orig. & Progr. Satire Ess. (ed. Ker) II. 92 ‘Tis only for a poet to translate a poem. 1776 JOHNSON 11 Apr., in Boswell, Poetry..cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve languages. 1850 WHIPPLE Ess. & Rev. (ed. 3) I. 300 If the phrase, realizing the ideal, were translated into the phrase, actualizing the real, much ambiguity might be avoided. 1874 GREEN Short Hist. vii. §I. 342 Retiring to Hamburg Tyndale translated the Gospels and Epistles.
b. absol. To practise translation; to make a version from one language or form of words into another; also intr. for pass., of a language, speech, or writing: To bear or admit of translation.
c1440 Pallad. on Husb. I. 735 Yet as myn auctor spak so wold I speke Sith I translate, and looth am from hym breke. 1576 FLEMING Panopl. Epist. 253 If you translate out of the Latine speach, into the Greeke. 1690 LOCKE Hum. Und. III. iv. §9 This is to translate, and not to define, when we change two words of the same signification one for another. 1731 FIELDING Author’s Farce II. v, The rogue had a trick of translating out of the shops as well as the languages. 1812 SOUTHEY Omniana II. 30 Claudian throughout would translate better than any of the ancients. 1827 {emem} Lett. (1856) IV. 64 The Welsh, I suspect, is not a language which translates well. 1831 MACAULAY Ess., Johnson (1887) 194 Sometimes Johnson translated aloud.
One of the quickest ways of looking words up for translation purposes is via Leo. It does not only offer a wide range of meanings but also reads out the words, gives cross-references etc.
In the ‘Gutenberg’-Project, you will not only find Mark Twain’s famous speech on the horrors of the German language, but also a recording of its being read: a good training ground for translating German phrases!
This is the official module outline:-|
When in 1897, Mark Twain complained to the Vienna Press Club about ‘Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache’, he drew on a long tradition of bemoaning the difficulties of translating into German. We will look into the history behind this discussion on the theory of translation as well as into practical examples of how poets dealt with literary models from other languages. The repeated translation of the Bible into German, most notably by Martin Luther, provides us with excellent comparative material for analysing how translators have set about their task and what the issues were that they had to resolve. From this base we will move on to look at how the poets of the that period of literature known as Weimar Classicism (Goethe, Schiller) combined translation theory and practice in their lyric poetry by drawing on the literature of other cultures
Part I: Historical overview about translation theory, following extracts from dedications and introductory letters like Luther’s: Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen
Part II: Theory and Practice of Translation in Weimar Classicism: The effects of enthusiasm for Ossian and Shakespeare (early translations and the ‘Ossian-Manie’ of Herder and Goethe), the fascination of foreign ‘folk’ lyrics (Herder’s collection ‘Stimmen der Völker’ with translations of poetry from all over the world) and the orient fashion (Goethe’s ‘West-östlicher Divan’ and his notes on adopting poetry).
And this is the inofficial version;-)
Translation is not only a linguistic task but a cultural challenge: when ‘bringing over’ the words from one language into the other, the concepts behind the sounds must be taken into account. This is a basic fact which gave headaches from antiquity through to modern times: is a ‘word-to-word’-rendering more faithful to the ‘original’ than a ‘sense-to-sense’-reworking which tries to capture the spirit? We will look into some of the answers authors tried to formulate – and into their own translations and whether they hold true to what they proclaimed. Did Luther really manage to create a German bible-language which would be understood by ‘the woman on the street’? Is Goethe a good messenger for oriental poetry when he creates his ‘West-östlicher Divan’ mixing translations of Persian poems between his own lyrics without making explicit which was which? A pathway through the periods of German literature and their attitude towards foreign languages is to compare translations of ever popular English poems like Shakespeare’s sonnets: we will look into attempts to poetically render ‘Shall I compare thee’ – and compare the translations one might, but providing a judgement on the quality could prove to be difficult!