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BBC, learning English. Hello, and welcome to Six Minute English.

I'm Finn, and I'm Neil. Hello, today we're talking about Shakespeare.

Oh, yes, to be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is nobia.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much,

finn. But what does that famous Shakespeare line actually mean?

Finn Yeah, well, it's quite hard to explain, actually, the English and shakespeare's work is quite difficult.

Well, shakespeare Festival in Oregon, in the United States wants to change all of that.

They want to pay writers. 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.

So Shakespeare in easy, plain English.

You know, I'm not sure I really like that idea.

Well, you're not the only one, finn.

We will talk about that in a moment.

But 1st, as usual, we have our quiz question, and it's about Shakespeare and translation.

What was the 1st language that Shakespeare s plays were translated into?

Was it a French, b German or c Portuguese?

What do you think? You know, I really have no idea on this one.

I'm going to say, be German.

We'll see if you're right at the end of the program.

But now we're going to hear from two Shakespeare experts speaking to the BBC 1st Andrew Dickinson.

He is the author of Worlds Elsewhere, journeys around shakespeare's Globe.

In his travels around the world, around the globe, did he find many translations of Shakespeare?

Someone's translates Hamlet into cling On.

You know, he exists in all of these different places, in all of these different forms.

And I suppose that what really struck me when I was working in my book and traveling around the world talking people about Shakespeare, is that he's so multifarious.

He exists in all of these places.

And it feels sometimes that we, in English speaking will are only just catching up with this Shakespeare expert, andrew Dickinson, who has traveled the world for his new book, and knows about many translations, even one from out of this world.

Yes, he says, someone has even translated Hamlet into Clingon.

Now, that's the language spoken by aliens in Star Trek, which is, of course, a science fiction TV series, is not a real language.

Let's get back to the real world.

Meal Andrew Dickinson says that what really impressed him, what really struck him while working on his new book and traveling around the world talking about Shakespeare, is that Shakespeare is so multi furious.

Multi furious, that's quite a difficult word.

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.

He's multi furious. Then we're using Plain English in this program, like the people in Oregon who want to translate experience of plain English.

That will make his plays easier to understand, and that's a good thing.

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.

They think it's a bad idea.

Our next Shakespeare expert is Greg Doran.

He's the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He's done productions outside Britain. Where did he do a production of the Shakespeare play Merchant of Venice?

Here he's talking about the difficulty of translation.

I think the difficulty with the 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 Venison in Japan, and I was asked, we were having a new translation done, and I was asked if I wanted the translation for meaningful pace or for poetry.

And that's the difficulty. You've got to find all three some together.

Greg Doren, 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, it's only the general meaning.

But he says that there's more than that.

Yes, they were having a translation done, and he was asked if he wanted the translation for meaning or for pace.

Now, that's about the speed of the lines in

the play, or was the poetry of the words important?

And his answer was that you've got to find all three somehow together.

It's not just one thing. He says that there's a lot going on.

There's a lot happening in the language of shakespeare's plays, 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. Yes, if you remember, it's about translations of Shakespeare, what was the 1st language that shakespeare's plays were translated into?

Was it a French? B German, C Portuguese?

I said, B German, which I'll admit was a guess, and that is the right answer.

Fantastic. Apparen'tly? Shakespeare's plays were translated into German as early as the 1st decade of the th century.

And that's all for now. Please, do join us again for 6 min English to be or not to be?

Yes. OK, thanks for Thank you.

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