A small country with centuries upon centuries of tradition easily falls sway to a new power sweeping in from the west; they seem so much bigger, better, shinier, more skilled and powerful, that it just seems to make sense to…
Blog Archives
1918: The Man who Spoke Snakish
Tagged with: 1918, Andrus Kivirähk, books, Christopher Moseley, Estonian, The Man who Spoke Snakish, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Do Geese See God?
Do geese see God? (English) Knit again and you’ll get a beer (Neulo taas niin saat oluen, Finnish) It was raining bread in the garden (Aias sadas saia, Estonian) Maybe tomorrow that lady will give a cake to the hedgehogs…
Tagged with: English, Esperanto, Estonian, European Day of Languages, Finnish, Free Word Centre, German, Latin, Palindromes, Polish
Posted in language, translation, words
Posted in language, translation, words
tasting translation: Aed
Translators on holiday should not be left free to analyse a menu for too long. But sometimes they are pleasantly surprised. I was in Tallinn for 48 hours only with a fluent Estonian speaker. Delight soon replaced my initial disorientation and…
compartment no. 6
If you read one Finnish book in translation this year, this should be it. I’ve started reading it in Finnish and it is great. Appropriately, Rosa Liksom’s Compartment No. 6 comes out in English on International Workers’ Day. In it,…
Tagged with: Compartment No. 6, Estonian, Finlandia Prize, Finnish, Finnish English Translation Co-operative, Literature, Lola Rogers, Purge, Rosa Liksom, Sofi Oksanen, Translation, translator
Posted in books, gender, international, literature, translation
Posted in books, gender, international, literature, translation
chocolate for everyone
Valentine’s Day both loses and gains something in translation. For the Japanese, today is the day when the women give chocolate (and only chocolate) to the men. This is because one chocolate company made a translation mistake, switching the genders, when…
Tagged with: cake, chocolate, Estonian, Finland, Finnish, friends, Japanese, Language, Translation
Posted in translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in translation, Valentine's Day
stories in translation: UK children’s book week 2013
In the UK it is Children’s Book Week from 7-11 October. How many of those books are translated from other languages? Not many, unfortunately. Here are my top 3 for 2013: One of my favourites as a young child was…
Tagged with: animals, Children's Book Week 2013, Children's literature, Estonian, French, Gunilla Wolde, Irish Gaelic, Lila Prap, Mrs Pepperpot, Oksa Pollock, Pippi Longstocking, Slovene, Sue Rose, Swedish, Welsh
Posted in Children's Book Week 2013, Illustration, international, language, literature, translation
Posted in Children's Book Week 2013, Illustration, international, language, literature, translation
found in translation 