Shakespeare in plain English

A Shakespeare festival in Oregon has commissioned 'translations' of his plays into plain English. Of course, the language of Shakespeare's plays can be difficult, but is it a good idea to change his plays into simple English? Listen to experts talking about Shakespeare and learn new vocabulary. A Shakespeare festival in Oregon has commissioned 'translations' of his plays into plain English. Of course, the language of Shakespeare's plays can be difficult, but is it a good idea to change his plays into simple English? Listen to experts talking about Shakespeare and learn new vocabulary. A Shakespeare festival in Oregon has commissioned 'translations' of his plays into plain English. Of course, the language of Shakespeare's plays can be difficult, but is it a good idea to change his plays into simple English? Listen to experts talking about Shakespeare and learn new vocabulary.

Neil
Well, a 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.

Finn
So Shakespeare in easy, plain English… You know, I'm not sure I really like that idea.

Neil
Well, you're not the only one, Finn. We will talk about that in a moment, but first, as usual, we have our quiz question and it's about Shakespeare and translation. What was the first language that Shakespeare's plays were translated into? Was it:
a)    French
b)    German or
c)    Portuguese
What do you think?