Original Foreign Language Titles

[Andrew from jc]

As the Title says should when writing questions and naming a work would it be better to use the original Title such as Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or would it be better to use the English Translation The Young Ladies of Avignon.

[Auroni]

List the more commonly used one as the main answer, and either the original foreign language title or the english translation as alternate answers. Using your example, you would write it as:

ANSWER: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon [or The Young Ladies of Avignon; accept equivalents for "young ladies"]

If you have a work better known by its English translation, you would write it as:

ANSWER: Silence [or Chinmoku]

[Cheynem]

If you were referring to using it as a clue (like, "in one of his works, 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,'") the same principle generally applies.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

This could vary depending on the question. If you are writing a tossup on France, you probably don't want to say "one author from this country wrote [a French title]".

[Kyle]

This could vary depending on the question. If you are writing a tossup on France, you probably don't want to say "one author from this country wrote [a French title]".

Here's a fun story intended as a word of warning about this approach. You also have to be careful translating things that are best known in a foreign language.

I wrote a tossup for Chris for the NSC that wasn't used (I don't think) on Athens. The question began by mentioning Athens's "New World" neighborhood, which is a center of Muslim immigration and also of some ethnic tension (there were riots in May 2009 after a police officer allegedly tore up a Qur'an). Of course, it isn't actually called the "New World" neighborhood; it's called "Neo Kosmos," which I translated because I thought it sounded too Greek.

About three days later, in practice, one of my teammates was reading a packet that he had written in his first-ever attempt at packet writing. Tossup 12 in his packet begins, "This city's New World district is now a seedy area." I buzzed in enthusiastically, said Athens, and lost five points. The problem is that he had been to the Shinsekai neighborhood in Osaka, realized that sounded too Japanese, and used its English translation.

[AKKOLADE]

That is a good story.

[Wackford Squeers]

One approach I've seen is using the original language title of a work as an early clue, and its better known translation closer to the end.

[Terrible Shorts Depot]

One approach I've seen is using the original language title of a work as an early clue, and its better known translation closer to the end.

This is a terrible idea. You are privileging someone who speaks a language, but has not read a book, over someone who has read that particular book, but doesn't speak that language. Why should I beat someone to a tossup on a book I haven't read just because I speak better German?

[gyre and gimble]

One approach I've seen is using the original language title of a work as an early clue, and its better known translation closer to the end.

This is a terrible idea. You are privileging someone who speaks a language, but has not read a book, over someone who has read that particular book, but doesn't speak that language. Why should I beat someone to a tossup on a book I haven't read just because I speak better German?

Also, it seems like that approach is wasting valuable clue space that could be used with another plot clue for the work, a clue about another work, or just the title of another work.