Nasax he/him Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 (edited) Hi everyone, i have this on my mind for a long time. And now that i am rereading the Stromlight Archive i noticed it again. I am german and therefore most of the books i own are in german, but the more i got in to the cosmere as a whole, i started to notice that the translation is inconsistend. Here are a few examples: The name of the shards Preservation would directly translate to "Erhaltung" or "Bewahrung" but instead translates to "Bewahr" Honor would directly translate to "Ehre" but instead it's translated to "Ehr" Cultivation would translate to "Kultivierung" but it instead translated to "Die Bebauerin" For all the members of the community that aren't speaking german: The names of the shards in german aren't nouns. That bothers me a bit, because i don't know why they changed these when there are direct translations. Preservation in Bands of Mourning Here Preservation is translated to "Retter" which means "saviour" in english. In the Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages it is translated with "Bewahr" as mentioned above. This translation is far more fitting, but it isn't a noun (!). Names in Era 2 of Mistborn In Era 1, most of the names are translated to match their german equivalent. For example Breeze is called "Weher" which is somewhat the correct translation. But in Era 2, all of a sudden, they are using the original english names. That threw me off a bit until i realized what was going on here. The Sibling in Oathbringer This one is little bit tricky because we don't use this word for a single person in germany. If you adress a single person you would say "This is my brother/sister". Only if you adress multiple people you can say "This are my siblings" (aka "Das sind meine Geschwister"). So there are to epigraphs in Oathbringer (i think on two consecutive chapters) where on one it is translated to "Der Geschwisterteil" and on the other with "Der Geschwister". I think neither of them is a real word. In Rythm of War it is then translated to "Der Zwilling" which means "The Twin" in english. Shards and Splinters So this one is tricky too. As far as i know there are no separate words for this in german. I would translate both as "Splitter". I saw Shard as "Splitter" and Splinter as "Flicken" in Oathbringer, but that isn't consistend through the books. Breath at the end of Rythm of War I am talking about the chapter with Hoid as a PoV-character. Here Breath translated to "Atem" whereas in Warbreaker it is translated to "Hauch". Both are correct, and i think there are no different words for this in english. It's just inconsistend. One more thing: I think the german titles are good for the most part. For example: The Lost Metal will be called "Metall der Götter" in german, which means "Metal of Gods". I think thats pretty fitting. So these are some things i noticed while reading in german. For my own sanity i think i will read the books in english from now on. Are there things you noticed when reading the books in a different language? Edited January 4, 2023 by Nasax
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