(no subject)
Oh, I give up. There are too many side-comments for facebook to handle, and twitter rarely answers back. It's time to liveblog the revisions to my translation project. I said I'd have a first version ready by tomorrow morning at the latest, and I totally will. I'm three pages into the revised version of my initial hack-job. Here goes. It's 9:55 and I'm making a cup of tea, which I'm going to consume along with a suisse aux pépites de chocolat. And I totally had pretzels, an endive with walnuts and vinegar, and applesauce for supper, but whatever. I wasn't that hungry.
Anyway, opening observation: enjeu is a hard word to translate because it has a wider semantic range in French than any of its English equivalents. And it is all over this thing I'm translating.
10:08: On the other hand, I don't think the challenge exists totally in translating French conjunctions and formulaic introductory phrases. Some of it is that you waaaay can't juxtapose ideas like that in English and have the connections between them make sense.
10:20: This 132-word sentence has got to go.
10:37: "est inscrite dans"... can totally be "is part of," right? Also, time to listen to my trad Christmas playlist, because I can't listen to the Messiah ALL the time. I'm a bad atheist, but "Past Three O'Clock" is one of my favorites...
10:44: Things my own experience reading and analyzing medieval documents have taught me, that I wish I could point out here: semantic analysis is not really as useful as you'd think, because medieval authors threw a lot of terms around kind of randomly and interchangeably (something French medievalists seem unwilling to believe). You have to look at the context!
10:49: Is "historiographical" even a word? Is "hagiographical"?
10:50: It totally doesn't help that I'm connected to google.fr, which naturally privileges French-language results.
11:11: "Le moment carolingien." I'm sure there's an English equivalent that isn't "the Carolingian moment" but I'm drawing a blank. Also lifting up my feet and making a wish (unrelated) for Kevin Porter's nasty knee-on-knee hit in the Canucks game last night not to have destroyed David Booth's knee.
11:39: Just about done page 4; just started my trad Christmas playlist again. Also, there are way more options for saying "it is necessary" in French than there are in English. NOT FAIR.
12:38: These wasabi-flavoured mini rice cakes are serious about the wasabi thing. Also, they're kind of disgusting. Boo, bad French imitations of delicious North American things. I should have known better... It may be time for more tea.
1:12: *squints* I don't see how this clause doesn't refer back to "le corpus manceau," so I'm not sure why it's suddenly in the plural. Oh, wait, there's an and in there. I think I have to make it singular in English to make it work, though.
1:59: ancienne... do I want old, ancient, former, or historic? Or would that be historical? I've lost all grip on adjectival forms in English. Or are they adjective forms? Augh!
2:41: Getting there... almost done the main text. Also, just found out that David Booth will be out 4-6 weeks with an ACL sprain, which sucks, but I was fearing a lot worse. This being a serious hockey fan thing is difficult! Also, at this point I might need to escalate my beverage consumption to coffee.
Anyway, opening observation: enjeu is a hard word to translate because it has a wider semantic range in French than any of its English equivalents. And it is all over this thing I'm translating.
10:08: On the other hand, I don't think the challenge exists totally in translating French conjunctions and formulaic introductory phrases. Some of it is that you waaaay can't juxtapose ideas like that in English and have the connections between them make sense.
10:20: This 132-word sentence has got to go.
10:37: "est inscrite dans"... can totally be "is part of," right? Also, time to listen to my trad Christmas playlist, because I can't listen to the Messiah ALL the time. I'm a bad atheist, but "Past Three O'Clock" is one of my favorites...
10:44: Things my own experience reading and analyzing medieval documents have taught me, that I wish I could point out here: semantic analysis is not really as useful as you'd think, because medieval authors threw a lot of terms around kind of randomly and interchangeably (something French medievalists seem unwilling to believe). You have to look at the context!
10:49: Is "historiographical" even a word? Is "hagiographical"?
10:50: It totally doesn't help that I'm connected to google.fr, which naturally privileges French-language results.
11:11: "Le moment carolingien." I'm sure there's an English equivalent that isn't "the Carolingian moment" but I'm drawing a blank. Also lifting up my feet and making a wish (unrelated) for Kevin Porter's nasty knee-on-knee hit in the Canucks game last night not to have destroyed David Booth's knee.
11:39: Just about done page 4; just started my trad Christmas playlist again. Also, there are way more options for saying "it is necessary" in French than there are in English. NOT FAIR.
12:38: These wasabi-flavoured mini rice cakes are serious about the wasabi thing. Also, they're kind of disgusting. Boo, bad French imitations of delicious North American things. I should have known better... It may be time for more tea.
1:12: *squints* I don't see how this clause doesn't refer back to "le corpus manceau," so I'm not sure why it's suddenly in the plural. Oh, wait, there's an and in there. I think I have to make it singular in English to make it work, though.
1:59: ancienne... do I want old, ancient, former, or historic? Or would that be historical? I've lost all grip on adjectival forms in English. Or are they adjective forms? Augh!
2:41: Getting there... almost done the main text. Also, just found out that David Booth will be out 4-6 weeks with an ACL sprain, which sucks, but I was fearing a lot worse. This being a serious hockey fan thing is difficult! Also, at this point I might need to escalate my beverage consumption to coffee.