Reading Tarot in different languages

Ana luisa, I'm so glad this resonates with someone! Your description of the playground is amazong, this is pretty much exactly how this feels.

delinfrey said:

PS- what has also worked for me is choosing the right deck (but that might be very personal). Perhaps you can find a deck/reading style that flows well with German? For example, Sacred Rose works very well for me in Estonian; Lenormand tends to work really well in German; old-style decks tend to work very well in French. I don't know why that is, maybe they just link to the right compartment in my messy brain!

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that is a really cool idea. immediately what springs to mind are the roehrig and the gipsy tarot, probably because they were made by german speaking authors (although i wouldn't choose the langustl). the herbal tarot would be nice, too, if i knew the names of all the herbs in german - oh, and the cat's eye, because the language of the cats is so universal.

Yes, I actually have that same issue. I read tarot in English. I only have one deck that has Spanish. I was recently talking in Spanish about tarot to another Spanish speaker and realized that I was somewhat stumped. I started trying to translate all the English words into spanish, which as anyone who is bilingual knows is not a good idea.

Then someone wanted a reading, in Spanish (she spoke little English)....

My Solution:

So I decided to start writing about each card on my own in Spanish (all my notes are in English). I then googled "tarot en español" and started reading those interpretations to get me started.

Nemia said:

In Hebrew, I use the word פריסה which I think is precise, and in German, Auslage - until I'll find something better. I gave my Hebrew tarot books away, what a pity, I'd like to know how it was translated "professionally".

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I abhor Hebrew Tarot material, the field just hasn't matured here and the language relating to it seems nonsensical. While I respect Ben-Dov very much, and it isn't even his fault, his writing does show this. Many proper words don't exist because the language doesn't have the history and maturation of other ones, being "reinvented" relatively recently.

The word commonly used for spread in Hebrew is "פתיחה," meaning "opening," but there doesn't seem to be consensus; I've read and heard people use both that as well as "פריסה," ("spread."). I use both interchangeably. However, both these words are incorrect when talking about the actual spread, rather than the act of reading it (like "the Celtic Cross something"). For that, I have no idea what the right word would be, I don't think it exists.

But I can read in both English and Hebrew. I can understand French, speak it under duress and get around as a tourist in France, but a reading is far beyond my league.

interesting - am doing a reading with the roehrig right now. don't know if there are any english versions, mine is german. and wouldn't you know it, 5 of wands is "striving" instead of "strife". quite a difference. the word "yearning" (sehnsucht) is on the card, too. the illustration itself is also much more fitting for striving and yearning than for strife. interesting what a misunderstanding in translation can do to the whole meaning of the card.

Ha, Zephyros, this is interesting! For me, פתיחה and פריסה are two different things.

Pticha, "opening", is a reading. "Open the cards" is the Hebrew expression, maybe even more precisely, "opening with help of cards" - or how would you translate the ב in לפתוח בקלפים?

Prissa, "spread", is the spread I use in the reading.

You can make an "opening" without any spread, but no matter what spread you use, it's always an opening.

I didn't read any Hebrew tarot books, much too lazy for that!, and the tarot boom in Israel ebbed away many years ago. But I had some books as presents and after my husband read them, we gave them to a friend of mine. I don't even remember the writers' names.

This friend of mine told me there's a tarot reader on Israeli TV but I never saw her. From what she told me, it sounded quite horrible.

And I read Ben Dov in English ;-) I'd really like to go to one of his lectures but Tel Aviv is too far away for me.

fractalgranny said:

interesting - am doing a reading with the roehrig right now. don't know if there are any english versions, mine is german. and wouldn't you know it, 5 of wands is "striving" instead of "strife". quite a difference. the word "yearning" (sehnsucht) is on the card, too. the illustration itself is also much more fitting for striving and yearning than for strife. interesting what a misunderstanding in translation can do to the whole meaning of the card.

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Wow, this is really unbelievable. That means that the artist didn't read any original material - just relied on his German Thoth deck and let the mistake replace the original meaning.

I wonder whether anyone noticed. I'm off to check my Banzhaf book now ;-) This mistake has irked me for years. It's a complete distortion.

ETA. Banzhaf, I'm glad to see, knows better. He calles the card Die Flammen des Streits, i.e., he translates Strife properly. No striving at all in his explanations. He obviously read Crowley.

That's in Der Crowley-Tarot, page 286.


Well, I guess we must be thankful that the nameless ignoramus who translated Strife as Streben instead of Streit didn't call the card Streifen (stripes)...

Another ETA as I comb through my library. This is fun!

Gerd Ziegler wrote his book in German, I own the English translation. There, the card is called Strife, but the text talks about - vain striving! LOL talking about vain striving, Herr Ziegler...

Nemia said:

Well, I guess we must be thankful that the nameless ignoramus who translated Strife as Streben instead of Streit didn't call the card Streifen (stripes)...

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well, actually ...

when you look at the faint words (there's a lot of faint handwriting on that deck) - what do you see???? "stripe" - see below. even albideuter didn't notice it.

http://i2.wp.com/tarotator.com/wp-c...Wands-The-Röhrig-Tarot-deck.jpg?fit=1024,1024

however. as good ol' dusty white says, there's only so much of human emotion you can capture in 78 cards. we dont have strife in the roehrig, but we do have yearning, which doesn't show up explicitly in many other decks. fine with me, who reads mostly from the image. i still like reading with this deck. roehrig is mostly an artist, not a tarot specialist. i didn't know that he was so loosy-goosy, though, and will have to keep this in mind when i use this deck under cirumstances that call for tarot purity (whatever that may be )

Gerd Ziegler wrote his book in German, the English translation. There, the card is called Strife, but the text talks about - vain striving! LOL talking about vain striving, Herr Ziegler...

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what's so difficult about the idea of strife? i mean, one of its translations - streit - even makes sense phonologically. i guess there must have been an "authoritative" translation of an english tarot text at one point that got that wrong and from there on everyone ent with it ...

Yes, I have experienced it before too. But I believe it's all about hitting a switch in your brain that starts you thinking in the other language I have to admit, it takes me a few seconds to find the right combination of words to describe something in Slovak. English has a different syntax and grammar - it's a lot easier to describe things in English because I use it every day and have been for many years. The Slovak language is much different, its' grammar is complicated, and I have to remember that idioms that sound okay in English can be insulting in Slovak...so all in all, it's a game of words...