Let's party again!

[wiseheart]

Well, folks, it's *that* time of the year again: I'll be 53 next Friday. So, it's time for the annual game of "let's the threads collapse". Come in, make yourselves comfortable, have a good time and bring your friends. Last years we had some 400+ comments, now we're in for the new record. ;)

This entry will be bounced up each day until October 9, so that all those who want can participate.

Update: On October 4, we had 195 comments on 2 pages. Well done. We still have got 5 more days, so let's see what we can do in that time. I have to say, the conversations in the individual threads were absolutely delightful. *is happy*

Update #2: On October 6, we had 270 comments - sadly, still on only 2 pages. Only 3 more day left to reach the ultimate goal, which would be 444 comments on 4 pages. But the discussions are great, so at the very least, we have the quality, if not the quantity yet. And that's more important, I'd say.

Update #3: On October 8, we had 388 comments, on 3 pages! Yay! I'm not very optimistic about Page 4, but I think the 444 comments might come together by the end of the day itself.

Pre-birthday gifts:
Got a wonderful bakery book from Mum, titled "Muffins and..." well, I seriously doubt that the English language has a word for the rest. Germans might know what Pogatschen are. They are small, salty or cheesy cookies, made usually of yeast dough... a Hungarian speciality. We already have quite a few recepies, but there are some in that book I never heard of. It will be a delight to try them out.

Also, I got the box-set of 2nd Season Torchwood from the most generous the_wild_iris! Thanks, my friend, you really, really made my day after two rather stressful weeks. I can finally watch the only episode I missed while we were in Belgium - the one in which Owen becomes a zombie. Heh!

Pre-birthday preparations:
I baked some strawberry flavoured muffins tonigh - not from the new book, from the carton box, I'm afraid, but for the colleagues they will do tomorrow.

Mum's bravely going down to the hairdresser's tomorrow, because, as she told me, "I can't look like this on your birthday!" Well, after not seeing a hairdresser for months, there's some truth in it.

The day after tomorrow, we're going to the "Blind Crow" for lunch. Unlike in English-speaking countries, lunch is actually the main meal of the day over here, so it will be great. The "Blind Crow" is a very nice little restaurant, and we can reach it on foot, which is the main issue, as Mum can't climb into any busses yet.


Final update:
Well, folks, the party will still be going on until midnight, CET, but I'm already declaring it a great success. We've made it onto Page 4, we've broken through the 500 (!!!)-comment-barrier, and I'm very happy.

Thanks everyone for participating, especially altariel, rcfinch, solanpolarn, the_wild_iris, theromangeneral and lhun_dweller, who've been working diligently and tirelessly to help me break the record. Should I've forgotten anyone, I humbly apologize.

Comments

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

"Snacka om renoveringsobjekt!"

Definitely a line that sticks in the memory. Maybe the translator would do well in the commercial business...

I do know that some of the famous Swedish poets have also 'translated' poetry into Swedish

Poets are usually good at adapting/translating poetry (provided they know the source language well, of course). Writers in general are good translators, but translating novels takes a lot of time, and they usually prefer their own stuff.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Having tried, very unsuccessfully!, to translate beloved Swedish poems into English to be able to share them with people who don't speak Swedish, I fully appreciate the difficulty of the task. I think you have to be a poet to be able to 'translate' poetry, and of course know both the original and the target language well.

I would imagine translating a novel, if done well, will take of the same order of magnitude of time as writing it in the first place. OK, you don't have to plot out the story, but you do have to worry about getting the text to sound consistent and what little clues the original author was planting with the use of particular words and phrases and how to transfer them, without having the freedom of changing the story if you find it doesn't work... I can see why people would prefer writing their own stuff if they have a choice.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Well... no, translating a novel doesn't take as much time as writing it. I know this from experience, as I've done both. (For novel, read: historical mystery). Creating a consistent, novel-length story and putting it into words takes a lot more organisation than translating the same kind of thing does - with the possible exception of the run-of-the-mill-stuff that used to be known as `penny dreadfuls`. IMO, the main reason why people prefer writing their own stuff is that writing is a much more prestigious job than translating. The author's name always appears on the cover, the translator's name rarely so.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply that writing a novel wouldn't take longer than translating it, just that I though it wouldn't take ten times as long. I may of course be entirely wrong about that, too; I have never even tried to do either. Your point that people will prefer to write their own stuff because it is more prestigious sounds probable, but I would add that they may also find it more rewarding and enjoyable to tell their own story than to help tell someone else's.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Let's say it takes an author a year to write a 300 page novel. It depends on the kind of novel, of course, and some people write faster than others, but it seems a reasonable estimate to me. The last 300 page novel I translated took me about three months. So that would be four times as fast. OTOH, George Martin needs five years to write a 1000 page fantasy novel, which I translate in about nine months. That's six times as fast. But yes, ten times is on the high side.

Your other point is well taken, too. Of course it's much more gratifying to tell your own story! On the other hand, it causes a lot more headaches and you can never lay it aside.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

That sounds like the sort of time-scales I imagined. I seem to remember that when the fourth or fifth Harry Potter book came out it took about six months for them to appear in Swedish after they were published in English. I imagine some of this time would be printing and proof-reading/editing, but the fact that it takes time to translate them was reason given for them not coming out earlier. I realize I may have been guilty of using scientific-jargon in my original post: when we say 'within an order of magnitude' in science we mean 'not more than ten times larger or a tenth as small'.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

If the HP translation appeared six months after the original, it probably took four to five months to translate the book. Usually, after I send a translation to the publisher, it takes about ten weeks before I see the printed result, but in the case of Harry Potter they probably sped up the process. Or they work faster in Sweden than in the Netherlands.

As for the order of magnitude - no, I didn't know that. But one is never to old to learn!