Information and IdeasVery hardMain idea: a translator's footnotes
Information and Ideas practice question
The translator's footnotes are the best part of the book. Where the original makes a joke that cannot cross into English, she does not pretend it can; she gives the plain sense in the text and the joke, with its untranslatable pun explained, at the foot of the page. The reader loses the laugh but gains the knowledge that a laugh was there, which is more than most translations give.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A. The translator's honest footnotes preserve what her translation cannot carry directly, and the reviewer values this.Correct
- B. The book's jokes are not funny in any language.
- C. Footnotes make a book harder to read.
- D. The translator should have left the jokes out.
Answer: A. The translator's honest footnotes preserve what her translation cannot carry directly, and the reviewer values this.
Plain sense in the text, the lost joke explained below.
Why the other answers are wrong
- B. The book's jokes are not funny in any language.
- The jokes work in the original.
- C. Footnotes make a book harder to read.
- The reviewer praises the footnotes.
- D. The translator should have left the jokes out.
- The reviewer praises their inclusion.
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