It’s too damn cold…
In Korean, we (they?) often use the words 냉정하다 and 차갑다 to refer to someone acting indifferent and, well, cold. While we also use temperature metaphors to describe someone’s attitude in English, I’ve always felt that, in practice, just translating 냉정하다 or 차갑다 as cold was awkward. Of course, there are options like “cold-hearted” and “to give someone the cold shoulder.” But these feel either clunky or too sentimental, or both. Most of the time, it’s not a big deal, but today I had a trickier translation that forced me to think outside the box. Here was the sentence:
리나의 선택은 인상적이다. 이 소설의 결말에서 리나가 “또 허벅지만 굵어지겠군. 내가 가진 건 튼튼한 다리뿐이지”라고 말할 때, 우리는 냉정한 현실 ‘인정’이 역설적이게도 따뜻한 현실 ‘긍정’에 이를 수도 있다는 것을 어리둥절하게 깨닫는다. 그러나 그게 다가 아니다. (Ethica of the Downfall by Shin Hyeong-cheol, p. who knows)
What makes this translation a little more difficult is 1) 냉정하다 is referring to a concept rather than a person, and 2) there is parallelism with 따뜻하다. My initial translation went something like:
Her choice is impressive. When Rina says she needs thicker and stronger legs, we are moved, realizing paradoxically that cold acknowledgements of reality can lead to warm affirmations. But that’s not all that is going on here.
No one is going to indict me over this translation, but for me, the parallelism of cold and warm, in English, feels a bit forced and flat, like something the writer worked hard to keep because they thought it was clever, but which in the end should probably be changed or simply deleted. While someone can be cold, can an acknowledgement be cold? I’m not sure, but the fact I’m asking the question is an editorial red flag. Maybe cold-hearted, but then we lose the parallelism. We could do “cold-hearted affirmations” and “warm-hearted affirmations” but as I mentioned before, this feels too sentimental to me. If someone tells me I’m being 냉정하다, I’ll try to be less rude. If someone tells me I’m being cold-hearted, I’ll tell them to go play with their stuffed animals.
While I was looking for synonyms for cold-hearted, I remembered the word callous (as well as the song “Holland Road” by Mumford and Sons…). And what’s an antonym for callous? Tender. Here, the parallelism of the original is replicated, but with a bit more [French accent] sophistication, without all the sentimentality of those warm and cozy feelings in one’s heart. With a few more edits, this is what I ended up with:
We should be impressed by her choice. When Rina resigns herself to needing thicker and stronger legs, we are moved, realizing paradoxically that callous acknowledgements of reality can lead to tender affirmations. But good vibes are not all that is going on here.
I’m not sure if I’ll use this specific translation of 냉정하다 again in the future, but this is the first case in which I feel like I’ve found a good translation of 냉정하다. And with that, I’ll call it a day.
