Name: BBC 6 Minute English October 29, 2015 - Shakespeare in plain English
Uploaded: 2016-01-08T04:31:00.000Z
Duration: 6 min 5 s
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Finn: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Finn.

Present continuous

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

To-infinitive

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 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.

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

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,

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.

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.

But there has also been strong criticism about this from academics

who study Shakespeare as well as from people on social media – on Facebook and Twitter.

Neil: Our next Shakespeare expert is Greg Doran.

He is the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

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 asked – we 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

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

for meaning or for pace – that'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.

Neil: He says that there is a lot going on – there 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: Apparently Shakespeare's plays were translated into German

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

Please do join us again for 6 Minute English.