"What have the Romans done for us?"

[ninswe104]

Originally posted by PaulMc
ninswe104,
When you say "re-translating" I am tempted once more to mount my soap-box and declaim:
"This is a Department of Education cop-out!" at the top of my voice.

If people were taught effectively with regard to Second (or 'Other subsequent') languages at school there would be no need to "gild the lily" or 'tart up' in any way a good piece of writing, whether prose or poetry (I'm concentrating on fiction. Different rules apply with information, text books, histories, technical literature etc).

Anyone who has ever read a "modern English" rendering of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" will appreciate how insane it is trying to "translate" without losing the meaning, and the point of most of Chaucer's jokes!

In classical literature, I have cringed my way through several atrocious "supposed translations" of Virgil's 'Aeneid' and some of Cicero's speeches - none of which have even come close to the sheer majesty of the originals. I never had the opportunity to study classical Greek
[ "Regrets, I've had a few ...." ... oops, sorry, misplaced quote .... ] ...
but I'm confident the same would apply. What German I have is self-taught, but I can struggle through a newspaper/magazine article and I've noticed that when German TV do 'voiceovers' of eg. a British sitcom, they most certainly do not translate the one-liners and other jokes in the original script (visions of Basil Fawlty's "Don't mention the War" routine, trying to imagine if this sketch would ever get past the censors on German TV ..... )

I'll let someone else get a word in, but basically my opinion (for what it's worth) is that you'll always get a lot more enjoyment out of reading any well-written piece of fiction in the original language, wherever possible

I speak 4 languishes somewhat good but alas french is not one of them. To my defence I can say that i will be studying french in about 2 years.

I will however have to disagree with you. Some translations are very good and I usualy first read the swedish version and later the same book in whatever languish its originaly were written in (if i know that languish of course).

For example the tintin books that are re-translating at the moment differed to much from the originals and now they are re-translating them to make them more like the originals and i see no harm in that.

PS: About the live action movie Steven Spielberg is directing it! And there is rumors about a woman getting the role as Tintin. There is an article at http://www.ign.com in the movie section search for tintin.

[PaulMc]

Ninswe, don't get me wrong!!!
I know there are some very good (and sensitively handled!) translations on the market, but I wasn't really referring to existing Swedish translations of anything (Tintin and/or other stories) because I have only limited experience of these
(and I wouldn't presume to pass judgement on a Swedish text, not being a native Swede myself! )

What I had in mind were translations from French - English, and also the dross which is passed off as "translations" of Latin texts into English.

In fact, some of the worst are the attempts which have been made from time to time to translate one period of "English" (e.g. Chaucer or Shakespeare) into "modern" English, supposedly aimed at the semi-literate products of our inadequate education system preparing for school exams. I mean: can you take it seriously when a Local Education Authority decides that the edition of "Romeo and Juliet" they are recommending their schools should be using is A COMIC BOOK???? This actually happened lasy year, it's not a "wind-up"!!

I'm sure the new translations of Tintin will be up to scratch, Spielberg's involvement in the film promises a watchable result .... but don't you think giving the lead role to a female is taking equal opportunity legislation a tad too far?
Almost as bad as two very unlikely rumours I heard this past week, concerning the new Doctor Who.
One story is that the role will be offered to Ricky Tomlinson. Anyone who knows this brilliant comedian will appreciate that this has got to be a joke, good though he is at what he does!
The other story is that the PC crowd want the role to be rewritten for a female Doctor, and are campaigning to have Dawn French accepted as the preferred candidate for the part .....

[ninswe104]

Heeh *pretending to laugh when he doesnt even know who dr who is * Any way a shakespeare comic you gotta be kidding! It feels like reading has gone dowv among people lately... I read a book by Sven Hedin (famous swedish explorer who maped out most of inner asia) written for students in 9th grade (thats not your 9th grade its the grade just before entering highschool) and I think it would be to complicated for most of my classmates to read (me being 16). Where they better at reading tehn us in 1912 or did they read differently from today?

About Tintin I have always been a fan of the books and always will... And teh reason a woman might play Tintin is becouse quite frankly he is very genderless, not saying thats its a good idea. I think a male actor would be better as Tintin atleast to me lokes alot more like a man then he does a woman but i can't think of a good male actor for tintin. Most actors doesn't have the right body tintin is a little below average height non-muscoless(sp?) and he had waht funny hair

Ps: im going to study in nordrhein -westfallen for 2 month in januari februari and with a little luck i will have time to cross the border to belgium and visit the tintin museum.

[PaulMc]

Sorry, but it's a fact: a 'comic book' rendering of Romeo & Juliet was officially the 'set text book' for study in (I think) Manchester last year - the text was also "current" rather than Shakespearian, it was supposed to make it more relevant to the pupils studying the work (???)

I thought Doctor Who was fairly well known throughout Europe, but I may be mistaken. I remember when I was living in Denmark a 'pilot' episode of incredible age (a Dalek story!! ) was shown. Someone rang in and said it scared them, so the story was NOT completed (it should have been a 6 x 30m serial).

Harmless melodrama, aimed at a child audience originally but it has become a 'cult' thing with a large following - can't remember exactly when it started, but it had to be mid-1960s I'd have thought: at least 7 people have played "The Doctor" so far, and a new series is due to start soon.

My congratulations, Paul. You have been the first
person who reacted to my posts in the right way.
My final words were a provocation, of course. I
didn't absolutely think them. And all the Irish and
Scottish people around got it in the right way.
I didn't mean to slate anybody. The best way of
dealing with somebody : the bad words can be seen
as a sign of disappointment very often. They can't
be seen as bombs. It is the bombs which kill innocent
people, usually. Wherever they come from. And they
are not only from terrorists. They are also from
governments which call them intelligent or smart
bombs. But my questions are :

1.In which thing are they intelligent ?
2.Is it because they come from a country whose
president was elected also from the lobbies of
weapon and oil producers ?
3.Don't you think that the war in Iraqi is not due
to humanitarian reasons but to the financial importance
of oil ?
4.Don't you think it's interest of the USA to make
wars as more as it's possible, so that they can use
the state-of-the-art weapons and guarantee extra
importance to the dollar ( and business, of course )?
Especially now that oil-producer-countries are embracing
the idea of being paid in Euro ?
5.It's now clear that Saddam Hussein didn't have any
mass destruction weapons as The Swedish representative
of UN always held. And I've gathered recently that
Saddam tried to convince the other oil producing
countries to ban the payments through dollars by
welcoming Euro. So don't you think that Bush sent the
troops to prevent that great danger for the dollar and
the whole Usa economy ?

To end with, I hope I can get good answers also from
the citizens of the USA. In the past it didn't happen.
PaulMc is the model to look at. Each and every country
can be criticised. As there isn't a single country which
can hold to have the fountain of Wisdom and Godness.
Not even the USA. Superman, Wonder Woman, Rambo and so
on, are just fictional characters. And the intelligent
bombs are anything but intelligent. They are anything as
mental, if anything. By the way, sorry for my English !!

Lycka till och.....Heja Sverige. The only country really
peaceful. I hope someday the other countries will join her.

[ninswe104]

This may seem a little rude but for somereason the way you post wally annoys me to hell. Can't you post like a normal person. In the way you post now its hard to reply and its like talking to a book instead of a human being.

I am a normal person, ninswe104. I'm not a book, I swear.
I swear it on Napoleon and Asterix, your favourite
authors I suppose, ninswe104.

If I annoy you to hell, why the hell do you reply to me ?
And why the hell do you read my threads ?
By the way, both Asterix and Napoleon were two losers...
Not necessarily good and peaceful ( they were not ).
Napoleon had had better touch books and read boobs.
Asterix had better rest in its dolmen in peace alongside
his supporters annoyed to hell.

Sorry for being a little bit rude to hell but I prefer...
heaven. I'm a normal person, you know now.

All the best for your burning activities, ninswe104.
And....lycka till.

Winston Churchill : ' If you want to wage a war win it.
Otherwise keep a convenient neutrality '

[ninswe104]

Since when is Asterix an author And Napoleon is one of the greatest men ever to live. His mind is spectacular they above everyone else living at that time.

Who else could have waged war against the rest of teh world and almost won! Thanks to him france gained an upswing in teh economy the ordinary people got more freedom and he helped modernise europe switching to the much more effective metric system in Napoleons france everyone could be waht they wanted not just nobels.

And though I do read Asterix nowhere have i said that I do I was disscusing Hergés comic Tintin. Not Uderzos and Goscingnys Asterix.

Tintin is one of the books that got me into reading. All the adventures he and Captain Haddock had and I have not forgotten them. I enjoy Tintin as much as I did 8 years ago if not more. Even though I now read alot more complex books you should never forgett that how good a book is is not judged by how complex or old it is.

For example the Illias and the Odyseé were quite a disapointment to me (may be becouse of crappy translations) and would much rather read "The crabb with the golden claws" when those again.

And Asterix and Napoleon not being "very peacefull" what does that have to do with things? Come to think of it a book with out some ind of violence would be preety dull right? Well solong "book" im going to eat now.

/EDIT/ Oh and suicide is your only option /EDIT/

About Asterix I was joking, of course. As for Napoleon
I disagree with you. The way he led his troops in Russia
and against Wellington gives me the idea of a loser.
Anyway we all live in democracy and every opinion has
a point to consider and one to differ. Lycka till.

[ninswe104]

You are right lets put aside this silly argument and strech out our hands in friendship.

But I disagree about Napoleon. Napoleon had something thats quite hard to explain Karl XII had it too.
The ability to affect theire mens performance greatly.

When NApoleons enemies were closing in on Paris he divided the army in 3 groups to fight all the enemies at once.
The army Napoleon led had constant victorys over the enemy and when he moved to one of the others the army immeditly began to lose.
Napoleon were a military genius he just misjudged the russians to sacrifice them self for the country.

And you gotta admit conquering the civilized world is quite a feat no?

Of course you've got a point at sustaining Napoleon
had some military skill. Don't worry, it's not by
disagreeing that I lose friendship with people like
you, Ninswe104. It's correct we defend our opinions
because we think that other people can accept our
free thought. It'd be sad should we live in a society
where everybody agrees with one another as the only
condition to be friends. And, you know, becoming enemies
just because we might possibly have different opinions
about Napoleon, would be extremely silly.

So, yes, let's stretch out our hands and shake them.
Lycka till, ninswe.

Important thing. I'm Italian but people from
other countries are welcome to join this thread.
Skåne and Italian wisdom, you know.

Lycka till.

Did they found many cities and towns ?
Including the capital city London ( Londinium ) ?
And all the ones ending in chester ( castrum ) ?

Isn't it enough ? What about Lombard Street in the
City ? Dedicated to the first Lombard bankers who
started the business there. And the area named
'Little Venice ', the most romantic area in London.

Isn't it enough yet ? The many Italian words in
operas ? Opera itself is Italian.

The question should be instead..What have the real
celts done for us ? Apart from the ira-sinnfein bombs,
of course.

Lycka till, England. Jag älskar dig också. Ciao.

[PaulMc]

Wally, if you spool back to the start of this thread and recall the brilliant comedian John Cleese (in whose mouth I still hear this phrase!!) you'll realise that it was always "tongue in cheek" rather than deadly serious

Probably dates from early Monty Python days, predating even "Fawlty Towers" but none the less funny for all its age!

If you're serious, however, about what the Celts have done for us ..... you could try any of the following

Invented Guinness
Discovered Greenland
Discovered America (subsequently lost in a hand of poker)
Re-discovered and subsequently colonised America
Drank Guinness
Brewed more Guinness
Became scene for the only decent film John Wayne ever made ("The Quiet Man")
Invented concept of "the craic"
Exported Guinness to the rest of the thirsty world

That do you to be going on with?

Of course, Paul, just provoking your reaction.
You had disappeared, you know. I was worried.

Guinness is certainly a great invention. But
also Murphy's, Harp, Hidden, Caffrey's and
countless others. Don't be modest now.

To say nothing of Jameson, the one near Giant's
Causeway, sorry but my mind has just gone blank.
Irish mist, you know. And Irish coffee as well,
or as badly. As you prefer.

I must say my favourite film is ' Michael Collins '.
Of course I think you know something about that
Cork man. Note the capital letter of Cork, please.
Though he didn't fight the Romans, he did something
very important for twenty-six counties in Eire, to
say the least. He missed the great occasion for the
six in the North, but I don't think he was the one
to blame. Sorry for my long post, but you know
Italians have the gift of the....Blarney Stone.
Without even being Celts or Irish, just think.

Lycka till and sorry for my provocation but...
it worked !