I think it is a mess. I read the new responses for the past several weeks and didn’t like them. Today Mass was a mess and the responses were worse than just reading them. I look at it somewhat as receiving new product instuctions that were originally written in chinese and then translated into english by some guy in Egypt. Absolutely no flow and not well translated.
We had cue cards and there were only a few goof ups when Father used a new greeting and a new dismissal that we werem’t used to.
The “Thanks be to God.” on the dismissal didn’t change so he did it all over again. LOL!
I went to a workshop put on by someone who served on the Vox Clara team that re-translated the venacular English and made it match the Latin.
You can look for three things:
Longer sentences
Higher linguistic register (We don’t need to be dumbed down by the English speaking bishops of the U. S.)
and
a more accurate to the Latin wording.
Our Mass was beautiful. With very few errors on the assembly’s part.
The new translation is far more accurate - the old version was what used to be called "dynamic translation", which is not what the original language says, but what the 'translator' thinks it means. What that winds up being in reality is just what the translator thinks it ought to be, which may or may not bear any relation to reality.
That's observable in the congregational parts, but far, far more so in comparing the collects and prefaces. Just one example, for the memorial of St. Peter Claver:
Deus, qui beatum Petrum servorum servum effecisti
eumque mira in eis iuvandis caritate et patientia roborasti,
eius nobis intercessione concede,
ut, qua Iesu Christi sunt, quaerentes,
proximos opere et veritate diligamus.
What it really says:
O God, who made Saint Peter Claver a slave of slaves
and strengthened him with wonderful charity and patience as he came to their help,
grant, through his intercession,
that, seeking the things of Jesus Christ,
we may love our neighbor in deeds and in truth.
What the 1973 version said:
God of mercy and love,
you offer all peoples
the dignity of sharing in your life.
By the example and prayers of Saint Peter Claver,
strengthen us to overcome all racial hatreds
and to love each other as brothers and sisters.
. . . thanks and a hat tip to Fr. Z, who has hundreds of examples of translations (and mis-translations) on his blog, What Does the Prayer Really Say?
Do you not agree that, first of all, a translation should tell us what the original says, not something else? (and especially not politically correct blather)?
"Et cum spiritu tuo" does not mean "and also with you." It means "and with your (thy) spirit". "Consubtantialem Patri" does not mean "one in being with the Father" - it means "consubstantial with the Father", or, if you prefer Cranmer's more Anglicised translation, "being of one substance with the Father". They are not the same thing theologically speaking. "Visibilium et invisibilium" does not mean "seen and unseen", it means "visible and invisible" (if I hide behind a curtain, I am unseen. But I am still visible, if you look. Something invisible is never visible and thus can never be seen, whether it's behind the curtain or not.)
And when we're talking about the worship of Almighty God, surely the meaning is more important than in my final exam on Tacitus? A lot more important?
The meaning must be accurate before we address issues of 'flow', which is very subjective, especially when you are rolling out something new for the first time, and even more so when you have a priest and congregation who have not rehearsed the new translation adequately and are stumbling through. On that issue, I would say give it time.