Somnia Memorias

Twilight - Indonesian Version

October 12th, 2008

Okay. I decided to read Stephenie Meyer’s novels, you know, the ones that made lots of hoopla out there. All bookstores (esp. Gramedia) were flooded by this series. So I bought a copy of the first book, Twilight, in Indonesian version. I was amazed with the weight of the book, it’s really light! Just like those imported books. Way to go, Gramedia Pustaka Utama! And then I started to read, and well, the story wasn’t that good. I don’t know, it’s just like the heroine is very obsessed with his own ’sempurna dan tampan’ boyfriend, and yeah the rest is a love story between human and vampire.

Well, I’m not gonna write about the story, there are too many pro and cons reviews about the story out there so I’ll write about the translation. Yes, the translation. It’s HORRIBLE. How come I spent much time in pain trying to understand a simple young adult novel, and to add some irony, written in my own native language?? And then I started to realize that the translator didn’t use ‘terjemahan bebas’, but instead she used the ‘terjemahan per kata’! And that’s where the horror begins.

Original (english) version: “Well, maybe a million or two.”

Indonesian version: “Yah, mungkin sejuta atau dua.”

Aw COME ON!! Kenapa sih ada penerjemah yang sampai hati alias TEGA bikin terjemahan kayak gitu?? 

I was really happy when Indonesian people started to appreciates books, and started to collect money just to buy some good books, making reading as one of the top list of their hobby. Yes, maybe they still can’t afford the original imported books, but they deserves high quality books even if it was translated into Bahasa Indonesia. This can only happened IF the publisher also provides high quality translation for high quality/popular international books. And that Twilight - Indonesian Version, is a failure. Big big failure.

I know I’m an ‘original-oriented’ version, I love to read books in their original language. Maybe I’m lucky enough to afford some imported books for english version novels, but what about another people, the ones that have the same hobby as me, the ones who appreciate books as much as I do, reading books with that kind of translation? Ini pelecehan verbal terhadap kemampuan berbahasa manusia. 

Semoga para penerjemah lebih bertanggungjawab lagi dalam melakukan pekerjaannya. Saya ngga tau apakah novel terjemahan lain separah ini atau ngga. Ngga masuk akal banget kalo saya malah jadi pusing baca buku terjemahan Indonesia dibandingkan baca versi original inggrisnya. 

Well, I almost stopped reading the whole series. But maybe I’ll give another chance, but this time with ebooks. I don’t like the series that much, so I won’t buy the rest of the series in original version (saya ngga akan beli terjemahan Indonesianya lagi, kapok!).

Saya sarankan kalau bisa baca yang originalnya aja. Buat yang mau ebook-nya, bisa download di sini:

Twilight: PDF - MS Word Document

New Moon: PDF - MS Word Document

Eclipse: PDF - MS Word Document

Breaking Dawn: PDF - MS Word Document

Yang mau beli di toko buku, di Kinokuniya Plaza Senayan Jakarta tersedia lengkap. Kalau maunya shopping online, di kutukutubuku.com juga lengkap.

Entry Filed under: Review