German
In a stunning anti-climactic move, the German book I wrote about before pretty much dropped the mailman and Miss Meier saga for the last third of its chapters in favor of nonsensical sentences by Neitsche. In the very last exercise, however, we did learn that the mailman and Miss Meier ran off to get married, and that there was a lot of booze at the reception. I knew you'd want to know. The questions of the mailman's father (who disapproved of Miss Meier), or who was taking care of Miss Meier's cats, or how she will continue her matchmaking business now that she can no longer play the field were all left unresolved.
Speaking of which, we finished the book last week and have been spending all the classtime since working on our own translations. That is what I am (nominally) doing right now in my final office hours of the semester. (It is conceivable that a student may wish to come by to ask questions about the 221 final exam. I would be surprised, however.)
The assignment is to translate an article-- 10 pages of double-spaced English text. Unfortunately, doing this is really hard, despite having access to various online and offline dictionaries and texts. I mean, what do you do with a sentence that has three verbs in a row, one of which can be translated as both "to teach " and "to learn" and a number of other things. The answer generally comes down to "context" but when everything needs to be contextualized in order to translate it, it becomes impossible.
I have done seven (7!) pages of this work so far, although I know that those pages need some serious revision, and, to be quite frank, I still am not particularly sure of what this guy is arguing-- even though it's an article on Faustus and other (English) Elizabethan staged magicians.
(Oh hey! Speaking of German(y), yesterday I discovered that the Oberammagau Passion Play has its own Facebook page. How wacky is that?)
For two whole paragraphs, the author blessed me with short sentences. Alas, it was only to lull me into a false sense of security as he then slammed me with two paragraph length ones. Grr! The only words I recognized in the most recent one, at first glance, were "der Stephen Greenblatt" and "'secret agenda' des elisabethanischen Dramas," for reasons which should be rather clear. I am pleased, however, that the sentence upon which I am about to embark has a list of names (real life Elizabethan magicians-- I recognize John Dee's name), and halfway down this newest page there is a chunk of text from Faustus, in English. (Of course, that doesn't really take space in the translation, but still, it's a visual and mental relief, an oasis to look forward to in the desert of German verbs.)
Every time I finish a paragraph, it's like a wee celebration. I do a little dance of joy (no, not really.)
At 3, instead of class, we're meeting (if we want to) over in a nearby cafe, and the professor will help with any questions we have. This is nice, but I'm not sure how much it will actually help. (It will help, actually, if for no other reason than to get me out of my office which currently smells inexplicably like the nasty nasty stinky fertilizer that the ASU people use. No, my shoes don't have any on them.)
Any language which has something called "the overloaded adjective construction" is inherently problematic. Take, for example, the following sentence, which isn't even a particularly gruesome example:
Das ist im übrigen auch die Rolle, die die zeitgenössischen Vertreter okkulter Gelehrsamkeit, Männer wie John Dee, Robert Fludd oder Simon Forman, sich selbst zudachten.
(hey neat! the umlauts copied!)
the phrase in the middle there, which starts "die die" is problematic because at first glance it looks like "the the".
(I still don't know what "sich selbst zudachten" means, so don't ask. It might mean " to think for themselves" but then again it might not.)
I have chosen, probably erroneously, after a long time of staring, many trips to the online dictionary (dict.cc is my current preferred one, but dict.leo.org is useful, too), rather more time playing ZooWorld on Facebook than I ought, and some creativity, to translate that sentence as:
"That is also besides the roles, which the contemporary representatives of occult scholarship, men like John Dee, Robert Fludd or Simon Forman, thought for themselves."
Is it right? I have no idea. Does it make sense? Not particularly!
I'd like an A in this class, and currently have one. I need a B in this class to have it count for my language requirement. ::fingers crossed::
Sigh.
Speaking of which, we finished the book last week and have been spending all the classtime since working on our own translations. That is what I am (nominally) doing right now in my final office hours of the semester. (It is conceivable that a student may wish to come by to ask questions about the 221 final exam. I would be surprised, however.)
The assignment is to translate an article-- 10 pages of double-spaced English text. Unfortunately, doing this is really hard, despite having access to various online and offline dictionaries and texts. I mean, what do you do with a sentence that has three verbs in a row, one of which can be translated as both "to teach " and "to learn" and a number of other things. The answer generally comes down to "context" but when everything needs to be contextualized in order to translate it, it becomes impossible.
I have done seven (7!) pages of this work so far, although I know that those pages need some serious revision, and, to be quite frank, I still am not particularly sure of what this guy is arguing-- even though it's an article on Faustus and other (English) Elizabethan staged magicians.
(Oh hey! Speaking of German(y), yesterday I discovered that the Oberammagau Passion Play has its own Facebook page. How wacky is that?)
For two whole paragraphs, the author blessed me with short sentences. Alas, it was only to lull me into a false sense of security as he then slammed me with two paragraph length ones. Grr! The only words I recognized in the most recent one, at first glance, were "der Stephen Greenblatt" and "'secret agenda' des elisabethanischen Dramas," for reasons which should be rather clear. I am pleased, however, that the sentence upon which I am about to embark has a list of names (real life Elizabethan magicians-- I recognize John Dee's name), and halfway down this newest page there is a chunk of text from Faustus, in English. (Of course, that doesn't really take space in the translation, but still, it's a visual and mental relief, an oasis to look forward to in the desert of German verbs.)
Every time I finish a paragraph, it's like a wee celebration. I do a little dance of joy (no, not really.)
At 3, instead of class, we're meeting (if we want to) over in a nearby cafe, and the professor will help with any questions we have. This is nice, but I'm not sure how much it will actually help. (It will help, actually, if for no other reason than to get me out of my office which currently smells inexplicably like the nasty nasty stinky fertilizer that the ASU people use. No, my shoes don't have any on them.)
Any language which has something called "the overloaded adjective construction" is inherently problematic. Take, for example, the following sentence, which isn't even a particularly gruesome example:
Das ist im übrigen auch die Rolle, die die zeitgenössischen Vertreter okkulter Gelehrsamkeit, Männer wie John Dee, Robert Fludd oder Simon Forman, sich selbst zudachten.
(hey neat! the umlauts copied!)
the phrase in the middle there, which starts "die die" is problematic because at first glance it looks like "the the".
(I still don't know what "sich selbst zudachten" means, so don't ask. It might mean " to think for themselves" but then again it might not.)
I have chosen, probably erroneously, after a long time of staring, many trips to the online dictionary (dict.cc is my current preferred one, but dict.leo.org is useful, too), rather more time playing ZooWorld on Facebook than I ought, and some creativity, to translate that sentence as:
"That is also besides the roles, which the contemporary representatives of occult scholarship, men like John Dee, Robert Fludd or Simon Forman, thought for themselves."
Is it right? I have no idea. Does it make sense? Not particularly!
I'd like an A in this class, and currently have one. I need a B in this class to have it count for my language requirement. ::fingers crossed::
Sigh.