Read it side by side with the original.
Each passage shows the English, the translation, and the editor's note on why a line was rendered that way. We picked dialogue — it's where weak translations give themselves away.
She had not spoken to her brother in eleven years, and the first thing he said to her was that the house was already sold.
Sie hatte elf Jahre lang nicht mit ihrem Bruder gesprochen, und das Erste, was er zu ihr sagte, war, dass das Haus bereits verkauft sei.
Subjunctive sei rather than war. It marks the sentence as his claim rather than established fact — the doubt the English carries through context, German carries through mood.
"You could have called," she said. Not an accusation. A door, left open a crack.
„Du hättest anrufen können“, sagte sie. Kein Vorwurf. Eine Tür, einen Spalt offen gelassen.
Mi abuela decía que el mar se lleva lo que uno le da, y que por eso nunca hay que darle nada que uno quiera de vuelta.
My grandmother used to say the sea keeps whatever you hand it, and that this is why you never hand it anything you want back.
Se lleva is literally "carries away". "Keeps" is the choice: it holds the grandmother's flat, superstitious authority, where "carries away" would sound lyrical and lose her.
No le hice caso. Tenía dieciséis años y todo lo que yo quería, lo quería para siempre.
I paid her no mind. I was sixteen, and everything I wanted, I wanted forever.
I had crossed the river before dawn, and by the time the bell rang I was already someone else.
Przekroczyłam rzekę przed świtem i zanim zabrzmiał dzwon, byłam już kimś innym.
Przekroczyłam fixes the narrator as female in the first clause of the book. English hides this for two hundred pages. Flagged in the brief as a decision only the author can make.
The steward did not look up. "His lordship is not receiving."
Zarządca nie podniósł wzroku. – Jego lordowska mość nie przyjmuje.
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