Translation

[twissie]

Here's the first piece of homework for my translation class. This is my first draft. The main assignment this first week is actually to answer some accompanying questions (regarding compound words), but whatever. Still doing a fair attempt at translating the full text as well. Every bit of practice helps 8]

Comments

[kurisu]

I only managed a C in higher English so this might not be that helpful...

'Leftover tickets' doesn't sound right... I think 'last-minute tickets' is closer (hence the website lastminute.com), although I think 'last-minute flights' is the more common phrase. I don't really know, I've never bought such tickets before.

'Loss of traffic' sounds a bit vague, it's hard to tell whether it means passenger numbers or air traffic (or indeed road traffic, which is the most common use of the word). I would have said something like, "The sale of cheap last-minute tickets helps to maintain passenger numbers".

One other thing that jumps out at me: "Which isn't an irrational option". In formal writing, a sentence shouldn't start with 'which' unless it's a question. I would have said something along the lines of, "What worries the travel industry is of course when people refrain from booking flights at all, which isn't an irrational option when travellers know that they can hold off on the vacation until things calm down". Although that does

[twissie]

This helps a lot, it feels like I'm cheating~~~ XD;

Last-minute tickets! Awesomesauce. That had me absolutely stumped. The only variation of flight ticket I could think of in English is the whole standby thing, but 'restplasser' isn't the same as standby at all, so whoo. @_@!

The 'the loss of traffic'-sentence is pretty vague in the original text as well. I'm actually not sure what they mean <,<;; lol

[kurisu]

No problem :)

I thought of another thing: I would say 'postpone their vacation' instead of 'hold off on the vacation'. It just makes it sound a little more formal. And I don't know why, but the 'the' implies to me that the vacation exists (the opposite of what the text says), whereas 'their' leaves it just a little bit more vague. I may be wrong though... it just sounds better that way.

Hope I'm not nitpicking :)

[twissie]

Haha yes. I thought the exact same thing after writing that last comment. I was like ".... POSTPONE! 8DDD"... as I couldn't remember that word earlier on. Weird how certain words escape you when you need them :p I have to be careful and not make the text too formal-sounding, though. The Norwegian text isn't all that formal in tone, really, and our teacher is quite adamant that we translate the tone and general message as well as the words ;)

Nitpicking is good when it comes to language. No problem :D

[spug]

«Kjernefamilie» er opprinnelig oversatt fra det engelske uttrykket «nuclear family», så du kan jo bruke det, kanskje! Jeg synes kanskje også at «voluntarily» eller «willingly» er et bedre ord for «friviljug» enn «gladly».

«We're once again witness to how irrational us human beings» - her burde det vel være «witnesses», eventuelt «We're once again witnessing». «Us» skal vel være «we»?

[twissie]

Takk for gode innspill! :D

True that ang. kjernefamilie. Jeg får tenke litt på det/presentere begge muligheter i timen. Var bare noe med å ha 'nuclear family' i setningen som fikk den til å virke veldig... utdatert eller noe.

Hadde både voluntarily, willingly, gladly, og cheerfully på min liste over ord som kunne brukes for 'friviljug', så yeah. Mye rart man kan finne på der. Vet ikke helt hvorfor jeg endte opp på gladly, kanskje for å prøve å få frem mer en følelse av "omg de er på fjellet og liker det :O"? I dunno. Skal tenke litt mer på den også :P

Oi mye rart i den setningen der, haha XD Yeah yeah. Da har jeg noe å pirke på fremover. Det er jo alltids bra.

[kurisu]

'Willingly' works best I think. I knew 'gladly' was odd but I couldn't think for the life of me what you'd use in its place.

'Nuclear family' is correct, but it's a very technical phrase. You wouldn't really use it in any context other than an article like this. I think 'an entire family' could also work in its place.

'Witness to' is actually perfectly okay. I think it's one of those stupid constructs that doesn't follow any obvious rule. 'Us' is very informal (possibly actually incorrect but often used), 'we' is a little formal but you could also drop it altogether, which would make it somewhere in-between.

[twissie]

xD;;; ♥