Further exercises in translation

I'm going to try to salvage some rags of respectability after that previous post by pointing out that translation challenges like this are something I do all the time, and they're rarely obscene or vulgar. I'll think of a clause or phrase--often a song lyric or title--and then force myself to translate it in my head into every language I think I can. Only after I've done that do I go to my dictionaries and try to look up words I realise I don't know.

For instance, the other night I was thinking of Let the dead bury their dead and tried to do it into various languages. I didn't know at the time that it was a Biblical quote (Luke 9:60), but this gives me a terrific opportunity to check my work. (I'll hide the canonical versions in case anyone else wants to have a go.)

Irish: "Lig na mairbh a mairbh d'adhlacadh." ( Read more... )

German: "Lass die Toten ihre Toten begraben." ( Read more... )

Catalan: "Deixa els morts interrar els seus morts." ( Read more... )

Can't do Welsh, since I don't know the word for "bury". And I've been worthless for Chinese since I got back from China. It hurts my poor brain just to think of Chinese words and I'm not sure if 埋 is Standard Chinese or just Cantonese. (I only know it because of the slang expression 埋單 máidān "bury [the] slip", i.e. "pay the check".) I'd venture the Dutch if I didn't have Dutch-speakers reading this journal who are such nice people they should be spared further pain.

( Correct Chinese here, FYI. Welsh in comments. )

Collegiality

Finally had to send my student employee downstairs to file so that we could get some damn work done. He's extremely sharp and affable (pretty much the polar opposite of Zombie Boy), so I need to stay on my guard lest he get me started on one of our many common subjects of interest. I must be a little off my game today, but telling me about his Chinese architecture class was really hardball. I mean, I was in the Forbidden City just three months ago!

We wandered from that topic to family history...hmm, how did that happen? Oh, right: Chinese architecture > Chinese Muslim architecture > Kaifeng Jews > family traditions. He was telling me how his grandmother used to read from his grandfather's journal of being stationed in Burma during WWII. Of twenty-one men who trekked back to India with him after the destruction of their post office, only three others survived. He only made it because of a big ol' Punjabi Sikh who used to shelter him from frigid mountain downpours by standing over him. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

You see what I mean. How am I supposed to concentrated on transfers and what-not with distractions like this?

Cora cainte chun foghlaim is úsáid

an lá a dhó
bheith ar do sheanléim arís
cochall a chur ar dhuine
dúil (na n-ae)/(a anama) bheith ag duine i rud
tar scannán ar na súile de dhuine