Things that make me happy

[maggie33]

The first teaser for Kim Nam Gil’s new drama Island.

It looks amazing and I can’t wait to watch it.


My Yuletide assignment – the writing goes slowly but well.


Speaking of writing - I wrote one treat for Trick or Treat Exchange. It’s a Ma Han/Chen Jiayi fic. I planned two treats, but RL interfered and I only wrote around 500 words of the second fic, before I gave up on it. But I plan to finish it, too, it will probably take a while, though.

Afternoon happiness (1805 words) by maggie33
Fandom: S.C.I.谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chén Jiāyí/Mă Hàn
Characters: Chen Jiayi, Mǎ Hàn
Additional Tags: Dating, Kissing, Mild Smut, Treat
Summary: How sudden rain can ruin your date. Or maybe rather how sudden rain can improve it. :)



KinnPorsche actors – looking at Bible’s, Build’s or Jeff Satur’s beautiful faces always cheers me up. See for yourself behind the cut below. :)

And last but not least, another tidbit from that post about translation I still haven’t written. :)

MIODZIE, JESTEM DOMEM! ALBO: PIĘTRO INNEJ MIŁOŚCI (ANOTHER LOVE STORY) GRA W JEDNYM POSTĘPKU by Stanisław Barańczak. About dangers of too literal translation - but it will be funny only to people who know both Polish and English.

I’m re-reading Barańczak’s Pegaz Zdębiał and the chapter where he translates Polish idoms literally into English as always made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

A few of my favorites behind the cut.

Bez ogródek – A small lilac garden

Bez zwłoki – A corpse smelling like lilac

Bez trudu – [Poetic] Lilacs of labor

Upaść na duchu – To tumble as a result of tripping over a ghost who tumbled and is now lying down

Paść bez ducha – To tumble even if there is no ghost around who tumbled and is now lying down

Raźnej mi było na duchu – It gave me a cheerful feeling to be lying down for a while on that ghost who tumbled and is now lying down

Dać nogę – To offer one leg (rather than one’s entire body in an attempt to bargain with the cannibals)

Wziąć nogi za pas – To confuse one’s legs with one’s waist

Ściąć kogos z nóg – To decapitate someone by chopping off, just in case, much more than only his head, e.g., the whole part of his body from the ankles up

Comments

[profiterole_reads]

What hot pics! :D

[maggie33]

Thanks. They are all so hot, but those three are the hottest to me. :)

[tinny]

I know *just* enough Polish to be able to understand the literal meaning of those idioms (with the help of the translation), but not the actual idioms, of course. Oops. :DD

Yay, Build and Bible. Nice pics!

[maggie33]

I love such fun translation games and Barańczak excels at them, but IMO you have to know both languages to appreciate them. That's why I can only enjoy Polish - English ones. As soon as it's the language I don't know it all flies over my head, even with a detailed explanation. :)

And I'm glad you enjoyed the pics - those boys are so beautiful, aren't they? :)

[laireshi]

MIODZIE, JESTEM DOMEM
Nie przyznam się, o czym pomyślałam najpierw ;)

[maggie33]

Oczywiście jak nie chcesz to nie musisz odpowiadać, ale jestem teraz strasznie ciekawa o czym. :D

[laireshi]

My brain went straight for "I'm a dom". Languages are hard xD

[maggie33]

LOL And yes, languages are hard. :DDD

[corvidology]

I have colleagues from all over the world and while their English is excellent I've helped proof read articles/assignments for them and often run across cases where they've literally translated idioms that just don't make sense in English.

One that sticks in my mind is a Japanese colleague who was writing a paper about the differences in historical accounts in China and Japan and had written 'but that was across the river.' My first very confused thought was China and Japan aren't separated by a river... HUH?

It turned out to be a direct translation of a Japanese idiom that means something like 'but that was no concern of ours.'

[maggie33]

LOL I love translatorial anecdotes like this one. Thanks for sharing. :)

[nnozomi]

I just realized I never commented on this post! I kept meaning to! Out of date, but: I'm glad your Yuletide writing is going well (mine is, well, started!), and wow, that's a lot of very pretty pictures.

I love the Polish idioms even without getting the point! The lilacs and the there-or-not-there ghost are amazing. ("To tumble even if there is no ghost around who tumbled and is now lying down" reminds me of the English rhyme "The other day upon the stair / I met a man who wasn't there..."). If you have a chance at some point, I'd love to hear how some of these are used in conversation/writing. (Could Google of course, but it's always more fun to find out in person, as it were...)
<3

[maggie33]

I did think about writing an explanation for these idioms in the post but at the time I was too lazy to do that. :) But if you're curious here it is.

"Bez" in Polish has two meanings: a preposition "without" and a flower "lilac". In these three idioms "bez" is used as a preposition, but Barańczak translates it as if it was a flower.

bez ogródek is used to describe the way of saying things, and it means "in an honest, frank and brusque way", just "ogródek" means a small garden

bez zwłoki is used to describe the way of doing things, it means "very quickly, without interruption". The word "zwłoki" means dead body.

bez trudu is also used to describe the way of doing things, it means "without efforts, very easily". "Trud" mean hardship or labor or effort.

As for the ones with the ghost - "duch" means literally ghost, but it's also another way (a bit outdated now) of saying "a soul".

Upaść na duchu means "to be sad and depressed"

Paść bez ducha means "to die". Upaść and paść both mean "to fall down" or "to tumble over"

Raźniej mi było na duchu means "I felt much better". Raźniej means "pleasantly, cheerfully".

I hope that makes sense. It's almost 9 p.m. here and I'm a bit tired, since it's Monday again and there are four more days of hard work before me. :)

[nnozomi]

Oh, thank you for writing all these out! Especially when you're tired; I hope work isn't too stressful right now *hugs*

aah, I should have known "duch" = soul, it's like Russian "dusha" (one of the few Russian words I know). "spirit" for both "soul" and "ghost," maybe?

The gloss makes the weird!translations even better, thank you. I'm tempted to start using a lot of these expressions myself. Lilacs and souls...