Assignment 9 ( Mariel Hemingway, 2009, Mariel's Kitchen)

Mariel Hadley Hemingway, born on November 22, 1961 in California, is well known American actress. But besides being an actress, she also found herself in writing, which is no wonder since she is a granddaughter of famous writer Ernest Hemingway.

In 2009, she published a cookbook known as Mariel’s Kitchen: Simple Ingredients for a Delicious and Satisfying Life. Filled with exciting and beautiful photographs and easy-to-follow instructions, Mariel’s Kitchen includes seventy-five sensational, doable recipes that are tasty enough to repeat.  With wide set of recipes suitable for every occasion, Mariel’s Kitchen is a new kind of American cookbook designed to help you and all those you cook for eat better , fresher and more delicious foods, day in and day out.

In the excerpt we got as a part of our homework, Mariel talks about the season shift- as cold winter is coming to an end with beautiful spring replacing its place, it is time for some changes on our dining table. She talks about the changes in the nature and brings that feeling into the kitchen.

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th ed.), Wikipedia.com, Google Images, Marielhemingway.com and the notes from the class. Our task was to translate this excerpt but also to see how difficult translation can be when we have some words characteristic for certain culture: it is a real challenge when it comes to finding corresponding equivalents. Dictionary did not help me a lot since for some types of vegetables and ingredients I had to look up for an image, so for this task, Google Images was of greatest help.

 “ Come springtime, I want to feel new” – the second part was little problematic for translation as I knew that I shouldn’t translate it as …želim da se osećam novo as it didn’t sound as something we would say in our language. After some thinking I decided to translate it as Kad dodje proleće, želim da se osećam drugačije (as she later explains why).

" cress salad " – For me, this was the most interesting word in the whole passage. I have never heard of this type of salad before and I did some research on the Internet. I found out that this type of salad originates from Russia and that there are several corresponding equivalents in our language: kres salata, potočac, etc.

" The watery feel of cucumber " - After a discussion we had in class, we agreed that watery shouldn’t be translated as vodnjikav ili vodenast as it has negative connotation. I decided to translate it Sočan (osvežavajući) ukus krastavca.

" bok choy" - kineski kupus

"tiny curls of new plant life " – I didn’t want to translate it as uvojci as it didn’t sound natural to me (this word is usually related to hair), so I translated it …golicaju jezik svojim mladim listićima.

When I finished my translation I read it two times to see whether it makes sense. I didn’t make any changes. The most difficult part of translation were the names of food but in the end I worked it out. The text was very interesting, however, not easy to translate, so i will grade it 5.   

Assignment 8 ( Heidi W. Durrow, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky)

Heidi W. Durrow, born June 21^st 1969, is an American writer and the author of a novel The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, a novel that brought Heidi Barbara Kingsolver Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change (2008).

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either white or black. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is a novel that reveals an unfathomable past and explores issues of identity at a time when many people are asking “Must race confine us and define us?”

Before starting my translation I read an excerpt two times. Once I read it, it was not hard to conclude what it was about: Rachel, a little girl, retells the situation in which she found herself one day. Tamika Washington doesn’t like Rachel and constantly pulls her hair and threatens to beat her up. In the second paragraph we find out that people tell Rachel all kinds of staff about black people (she is uncertain whether she is white or black) and she learns that she herself is black. Text is very interesting as we have child as a main character. In order to make the translation as effective as the original, we have to find appropriate equivalents to illustrate the image the author was trying to create.

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th ed.), Wikipedia.com, HeidiWDurrow.com and the notes from the class. There weren’t many unfamiliar words, those that were, I found in the dictionary. Much bigger problem was adjusting Rachel’s and Tamika’s speech as it needed to look transparent and obvious to the reader that two little girls are talking. Here are some problems that I had:

Mor - upon the first reading I wasn’t sure what this word means. I thought it was the name of her friend or cousin. Fortunately, the notes from the class made me do a little research and I found out that Mor is a Danish word for mother (suddenly everything made sense) so I translated the entire sentence Ni mama nije znala. 

As I already mentioned, Tamika’s speech did cause me a lot of troubles during the translation but I managed to find appropriate equivalents in Serbian and here they are:

“ You think you so cute” – Mis’iš da si mnogo slatka a?

“ I am fixin to kick your ass”  Ima da te prebijem!

“ Dang”  - this was a little bit problematic. Dictionary definition of this word is: a mild swear word used instead of damn. I did not want to translate it as Dodjavola or Prokletstvo as it didn’t sound as something that child would say. So I think that more appropriate translation would be: E svašta!

“ I am light-skinned-ed” This is a good example of how children are speaking. Various things came to my mind as options for this translation: Ja sam belokožac. or  Belpurasta sam.

“ I put all these new facts into the new girl” – I sva ova nova otkrića će da budu deo nove devojčice. or I sve ovo novo će da bude jedna nova devojčica.

Before posting my translation I read everything twice. I didn’t make any changes. I enjoyed translating the text as it was very interesting and I didn’t find it hard at all. Therefore, my final grade would be 3. 

Assignment 7 ( Iain Banks, The Bridge)

The Bridge is a novel written by Scottish author Iain Banks. It was published in 1986. and it represents one of the best Iain’s works. On the surface, The Bridge is a novel about three different protagonists: John Orr, The Barbarian and Alex. The reader is not told his full name but it is hinted to be Alexander Lennox, a troubled man who crashes his car while gazing at the Forth Bridge and goes into a coma. What reader will later realize is that all the characters are the same character, Alexander Lennox, who, while lying in a coma, revisits memories of his life up until the moment of the crash. Mixing realities, the concept of doppelganger, different allusions, etc. don’t make this book a fast paced one but Banks instead offers the reader the chance to literally enter the mind of the character – an opportunity that must not be missed.

Before starting my translation, I read an excerpt two times. It wasn’t hard to conclude what the text is about. We are given a dialogue between Mr John Orr and Mr Lynch. Upon my first reading I realized that the two persons, having a conversation, are from different social class: Mr John being a more sophisticated and educated one and Mr Lynch being a less educated one, perhaps from the lower, working class. The task was to adjust these two dialects, to translate the text in a way that reader realizes that these two persons are two different worlds. While reading, the difference between them needs to be obvious. This made the task a little bit challenging but also interesting.

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th ed.), Google.com and Wikipedia.com. Dictionary solved all my doubts when it comes to unfamiliar words but I mostly relied on my notes from the class and focused on finding corresponding equivalents.

Lynchy’s part of dialogue caused me a lot of troubles as I tried really hard to illustrate and present him in the way Iain Banks presented him in the original. Here are some problems that I had:

“ Scuse me, pal. New here, aren’t ye”    Izvin’te druže. Nov li si ovde? – I think that word Novajlija is also possible in the 2^nd sentence.

“Nothin’ just bein’ neighbourly. Wondered if there was anythin’ ye wanted”.  Niš’, samo pokušavam da budem ljubazan. Reko da vidim treba li ti što.

“his not-recently-washed face”  ne baš često prano lice or ne-skoro-oprano lice

“ Chucked ye out, just like that, eh?” I tek tako te izbaciše?

“Them doctors” Oni lekari?! or Ti lekari.

Before posting my translation I read it two times; it seemed quite right to me so I didn’t change anything. The text was definitely very interesting and not hard at all so I’ll grade it with 2. 

Assignment 6 ( Marilynne Robinson, Home)

Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. She was born in 1943 and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho.  She has emerged as one of the America’s greatest contemporary novelists, with a career characterized by surprise and singularity. So far, she has written three highly acclaimed novels: Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004) and Home (2008).

Home is an unusual exercise: a companion to Gilead, not sequel but sibling, narrating the same, rather uneventful, events as that novel, but in a context of a different family history and from different perspectives.

Home retells Jack Boughton's story from the point of view of his younger sister, Glory, who has reluctantly returned to Gilead at the age of 38 to care for her dying father, a Presbyterian minister and John Ames's best friend. Jack, the family's black sheep, an alcoholic with a dishonourable past, returns for reasons that he will only intimate (they are more fully disclosed in Gilead). Glory has secrets of her own: she was humiliated by a man to whom she thought she was engaged, but who turned out to be married. Home is a novel of secrets: the three Boughtons withhold most of what they are thinking and feeling from each other, as they reside uneasily under the same roof.

Before starting my translation, I read the text twice. It wasn’t hard to conclude what the text is about. We are given a description of the house in which the Boughton family used to live. Children of the Reverend Robert Boughton returned to the house and we see them reviving their memories all over again.  But it is not just a simple description of the house- the house is personified, and from the description we come to conclusion that it is treated as a human being, an important member of the family Boughton, rather than an object.

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th ed.), Merriam-Webster Online, Google Translate, Wikipedia.com and Guardian.co.uk

Even though the text is not hard to understand, one must be very careful when translating it as the main point is to make the house a living object- reader must get an impression that it is alive in order to realize what that house represents for its inhabitants. Problems that may appear during the translation:

“ Well, it’s a good house” – this is the 1^st sentence in the text. I myself would translate it as “Pa, dobra je to kuća”. What might be confusing is the word Well, which most of us would replace with Serbian equivalent Pa. After the discussion we had in class I think that the more suitable translation would be Dobra je to kuća, znaš.

“ …with a flat face and a flattened roof and peaked brows over the windows”   This is a description of the house which I found little confusing. After the discussion we had in class, it was obvious that the house is, as I already mentioned, personified. It was essential to find Serbian equivalents which won’t spoil the image that the author was trying to create. I translated it as: “…neukrašena, spljoštenog krova i šiljatih lukova iznad prozora nalik na obrve”

“Italianate” The father was probably referring to the style of the house, the way it was built. If that is the case than a proper translation would be “Prava italijanska” or “Italijanski stil gradnje”.

“Such times you had!” Obviously, this sentence can’t be translated literally. I had several solutions: “Eh, kakva su to vremena bila” “Ala ste se lepo provodili” “Bila su to dobra vremena”

Before posting my translation I read it several times to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes and to make sure everything had sense. I didn’t change anything. The notes from the class sure did help me a lot- if it weren’t for them, I might have misunderstood something and translated it differently. As I already mentioned the text is not hard to translate, we did some more complicated texts, so I will grade it with 4. 

Assignment 5 ( Iain Banks, The Bridge)

The Bridge is a novel written by Scottish author Iain Banks. It was published in 1986. and it represents one of the best Iain’s works. On the surface, The Bridge is a novel about three different protagonists: John Orr, The Barbarian and Alex. The reader is not told his full name but it is hinted to be Alexander Lennox, a troubled man who crashes his car while gazing at the Forth Bridge and goes into a coma. What reader will later realize is that all the characters are the same character, Alexander Lennox, who, while lying in a coma, revisits memories of his life up until the moment of the crash. Mixing realities, the concept of doppelganger, different allusions, etc. don’t make this book a fast paced one but Banks instead offers the reader the chance to literally enter the mind of the character – an opportunity that must not be missed.

Before starting my translation I read an excerpt three times (some sentences even more than three times). Upon my first reading I figured out the main idea of the text. We are given a very detailed description of a place around the character- the dark station, its surrounding, noises,…Since the text is full of adjective phrases it was really hard including all of them in my translation but as the text insists on gradation of images I did my best  to adapt my translation to the original version.

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th edition), Wikipedia.com, Google.com. I didn’t find all the answers in them but I must say, notes from the class did help me a lot. 

Problems: 

•  "The dark station, shuttered and empty, echoed to the distant, fading whistle of the departing train." The first sentence of the paragraph seemed as a quiet a challenge. The entire sentence represents the gradation of adjectives. It was really hard including all of them in a translation. The sentence has to be meaningful and putting adjectives, one by one, was not a solution. So I divided this large sentence into two smaller ones and it sounded like this: Mračna stanica, prazna I pusta. U daljini odjekivao je jenjavajući zvižduk voza koji je odlazio.
•  "I wanted to hear its panting breath, the busy clatter of its pistoned hearts, the chatter of is valves and slides." This construction was one of the hardest in the text for me. These are all the noises of the locomotive. As I don’t know much about trains, its parts and the noises it makes I looked on the internet, but my search wasn’t successful. I didn’t manage to find corresponding expressions in Serbian so I translated them, more or less, freely, in a descriptive way. Hteo sam da čujem njen brekćući dah, vredno klepetanje srca njenih klipova, torokanje ventila i klizača.
• "Some wisps of steam or smoke, only slowly dispatching in the valley’s moist, chill air, hung above the black slate and soot-darkened bricks." The first problem here was finding a corresponding equivalent to construction some wisps of steam or smoke which I in the end translated as pramičci pare ili dima. But I think it could also be translated as oblačak,. Another problem for me was to figure out what black slate is. After reading this sentence several times and browsing through my notes I concluded it was a material, used for covering roofs, or, in Serbian: crepovi. So my translation of this sentence is: Poneki pramičci pare ili dima, tek polako su se prostirali kroz vlažan, hladan vazduh u dolini, I visili nad crnim crepovima I počađavelim ciglama.

 f    Before posting my translation I read it twice to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. I made a few corrections but translation remained the same. Notes and discussions we had on our previous class really helped me a lot and made my translation easier. This was definitely the hardest text we did so far so I will grade it with 9 ( in case there is one even harder).

#s

Assignment 4 ( Amy Tan, The Opposite of fate)

Amy Tan is an American writer, best known for her work The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. However, Tan has written several other bestselling novels, one of which is The Opposite of fate: A Book of Musings, a collection of non-fiction essays.

This collection of non-fiction writings includes multiple genres: essay, email, responses to journalist's questions, eulogy, love poem, university presentations, travel journal entries, and a commencement speech. Hence Tan terms the work "musings". It deals with multiple topics, ranging from memoirs of childhood and young adulthood, writing tips, her traumas such as the torture and murder of her best friend, the death of her father and brother, the complicated psyche of her mother, Daisy Tan, and past and present tragedies and struggles.

Before starting my translation I read an excerpt three times. Based on the information given in the text and the style of writing it wasn’t hard to conclude what the text is about, the tone and the author’s attitude towards the situation described in the excerpt. It is obvious that the author is in a bookstore, browsing through books while waiting to read from her own published work in front of the people. During that time, she remembers being a student, “recalling her past sins”, remembers reading CliffsNotes herself and finally finding herself flipping through the pages of her own book.

The text is not hard to understand, however, some difficulties might appear during the translation. I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th edition), Wikipedia.com, Google.com and the notes from the previous class. Some potential problems during the translation may be:

1. CliffsNotes- not all people know what CliffsNotes are (students and young people are expected to know this) so the question is whether we should transcribe it, as many people may not understand what it means, or translate it into something more closer to the reader. I choose to transcribe them even though it could be translated into Serbian as sažeta izdanja.
2. The Joy Luck Club- it is, as I already mentioned, the title of Tan’s most famous book. During translation I ran into 2 different translations, one being Klub sretnih žena (1994) and the other one being Klub radosti sreće (2005). I choose the newer one even though, I must say, the first translation sounds more appealing. Of course there is also another option and that is transcribing the title.     
3.  Former honors English major- titles are, most probably, a problem that translator will be facing every time he starts his translation. Titles in other countries, in this case America, differ from titles in our own country. Literally, this would sound bivši diplomac engleskog jezika. However, words bivši diplomac didn’t sound good for me, it was like she used to have that diploma and now she doesn’t, and that’s not the case. So I choose to translate it in a more general way: bivši student engleskog jezika.
4.       .     Self-proclaimed as “your key to the classics”- this statement refers again to CliffsNotes. Of course if a person does not know what CliffsNotes are, he/she might translate it literally as vaš ključ do klasika. But this kind of translation is inappropriate in the sense that it does not match with the meaning of CliffsNotes and their purpose. In that case, some research should be made. Since I had no difficulties with that as I already knew what CliffsNotes are, I translated it as samozvane kao vaš vodič kroz klasike. 
5.   In page after chilling page- this expression was quite ambiguous for me and I think I wouldn’t manage to translate it if it weren’t for the notes from our previous class. It is impossible to say that pages are chilling so it is obvious that the sentence has deeper meaning. On our previous class, we agreed that this chilling word has nothing to do with pages but with the author’s feelings while flipping through the pages of her own book. So I translated it as: sve više sam osećala jezu. 

Before I handed in my translation I read it twice to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. I didn’t change anything. The text itself is not hard to understand. I read it several times and I left some of the expressions I found hard for the last. Notes and discussion from the class really helped me and made my translation easier. If it weren’t for these notes, it would certainly take me much more time to figure out what some of these expressions refer to. Beside these tricky expressions I wouldn’t say the text was hard. Since we did some more challenging translations, I would say this one is 5 on a scale from 1 to 10.

Assignment 3 ( Iain Banks, Complicity )

Iain Banks, born on 16 February 1954, is a Scottish writer. He writes mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain Menzies Banks. The Times named Banks in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Complicity, a detective fiction and a little bit of a gothic story, was first published in 1993.

Its two main characters are Cameron Colley, a journalist, working for Scottish newspaper called The Caledonian, and a serial murderer whose identity is a mystery. Colley is living in Edinburgh. He smokes cigarettes and cannabis, drinks copious amounts of alcohol, plays computer games and has adventurous sex with a married woman. He regrets his addictions and misdemeanors and tries half-heartedly to give them up. He receives anonymous phone calls about a series of mysterious deaths. Suddenly he has mysterious deaths of his own to worry about when an editorial he wrote several years before comes back to haunt him. It seems someone is killing off the people on his list, one by one. Under suspicion by the police, Colley finds himself involved in the bizarre murders when the killer is revealed. 

The passages dealing with Colley, the journalist, are written in the 1st person and those dealing with the murderer in the 2nd person. ( it seems like we are looking through killer's eyes)

Before starting my translation, I read an excerpt twice. It was a little bit strange for me that narration is in the 2nd person so I did a little research on the internet and found out that the entire novel is a mixture of 1st and 2nd person narration. According to the number of information given in the excerpt and the style of writing, it wasn't hard to conclude what the main idea of the text is. In this passage in particular, it is a mysterious murderer who is waiting for the owner of the house to come ( probably to kill him). Because of the 2nd person narration, we, as readers, are enabled to witness all the events and see them through killer's eyes. 

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary ( 8th edition), Wikipedia.com, Google.com and the notes of the analysis done in the previous class. Of course, I had difficulties during translation as not all words in the text have their equivalents in Serbian so I tried hard to translate them in a descriptive way. Some of the problems were: 

1. a small telephone seat : this type of a phrase doesn't have its equivalent in Serbian, such thing doesn't exist in Serbian, so I translated it descriptive stoličica pored telefona.

2. eyes white in the half- darkness : we analysed this problem in class, stating it was impossible for eyes to be seen in the dark, it was sclera ( or white of the eye) that the writer is referring to, so having known that, I translated it in Serbian as beonjača as it is the only part of an eye that can be seen in the half-darkness.

3. the maid has pissed herself : this style of writing is quite colloquial, informal. Later on in the text, writer used the word "urine", this word being more formal. However, after a discussion we had in class I translated it as Služavka se upiškila, whereas the word "urine" I didn't translate as urin ( as this word can only be heard in medicine, by doctors) but as mokraća.

4. still- warm Aga : Wikipedia.com : The Aga cooker is a stored-heat stove invented in 1929. This type of cooker corresponds to our smederevac ( if we want to use colloquial style as well) or simply šporet, being more general. 

5. Pronoun YOU : during the analysis on the class, we concluded there are several ways we can interpret this text: it can be translated in the 2nd person singular, 3rd person singular or even 2nd person plural. I choose 3rd person singular. 

The text is not hard to translate, it seems easier than the previous ones, so on a scale from 1 to 10, I would say 5. It is very important to understand the text because only in that way you will be able to translate it properly and save the originality of the work and the main idea that the writer tried to convey.  

Assignment 2

Before starting my translation I read the text twice, trying to figure out what the text is about. During the translation, I used Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (8th edition) but unfortunately I couldn't find solution to all problems in the text, so I looked on the Internet.
Text is not easy to translate,I would say hard 8 on a scale from 1 to 10 so the job must be taken very seriously. A person needs to do a little of research before starting translation, there are some words in the text to which you must find an equivalent in your own language. E.g.
- Chain gang ( OALD definition: a group of prisoners chained together and forced to work) literal translation in Serbian would be: lancima vezana banda. But then we come to another problem: Why would anyone listen the chain gang? What is there to listen?
- Fork Falls Road might be another issue since it is the name of the street.  If I were the translator, I would leave it this way, without transcribing it.
- Another possible issue might be a description of a person as there are some constructions such as "two gray crossed eyes which are turned inward so sharply that they seem to be exchanging with each other..."
- Some may also find narration ( 2nd person narration) as one of possible problems as the entire text must be translated as if he ( the narrator) is speaking to us (readers).
Since it would we impossible to translate the entire text literally,  translation techniques, such as replacement (substitution), changing word order, replacement using antonymy,...must be used.

Truman Capote, Hladnokrvno ubistvo

Vlasnik farme River Veli, četrdesetosmogodisnji Herbert William Clutter,na osnovu nedavnog medicinskog pregleda za polisu osiguranja, znao je da je izuzetno dobrog zdravlja. Sa naočarima bez okvira i prosečnom visinom  oko 178cm, gospodin Clutter bio je oličenje pravog muškarca. Širokih  ramena, još uvek tamne kose,  četvrtaste vilice I samouverenog  pogleda koji je zadrzao svoju mladolikost, a njegovi zubi, dovoljno jaki da slome orah, još uvek su bili očuvani.Imao je 70kg, isto kao I onog dana kada je zavrsio Univerzitet u Kanzasu, gde je studirao poljoprivredu. Nije da je bio bogatiji od najbogatijeg u Holkomu- gospodina Taylora Jonesa, komšije i vlasnika ranča, ali je svakako bio najpoznatiji stanovnik svog mesta i istaknuta ličnost sedišta najbližeg okruga, Garden Sitija, u kome je upravljao gradjevinskim odborom za izgradnju nedavno završene  Prve metodističke crkve, zdanja vrednog osamdesethiljada dolara.  Kao predsednik kanzaških zemljoradničkih zadruga,  bio je nadaleko poznat i poštovan  među poljoprivrednicima srednjeg zapada, pošto se njegovo ime moglo čuti u pojedinim vašingtonskim uredima, gde je za vreme Ajzenhauerove vlade bio član Poljoprivrednog odbora.

Assignment 1 (author, text)

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Before I started translating I read text carefully several times in order to get the main idea, to try to conclude what the story is about. Once I read it, I ran across some difficulties as it was impossible for me to find out the plot of the story just by reading this small excerpt since I did not read this book before. Therefore, I looked for all information I could find on internet and wikipedia.com offered some really good stuff. I read a short biography of the author of the book, found out all about the genre and read a summary. It seemed enough for me and I started translating.

Before writing it down, I tried to figure out how this translation should look like, where is the boundary when it comes to translation and how much freedom I, as interpreter, actually have. 

The moment I started translating, some difficulties appeared. First of all, I did not know whether I should transcribe character's name or not. Then, there were names of places such as River Valley Farm, Garden City, Holcomb which confused me even more. My poor experience in translating made me leave them the way they are. 

It took me a while to convert his pounds into kilos, his "feet" into meters, etc.

The sentences were long, it was hard joining small parts of it and trying to make sense of it all. It was quite challenging translating those institutions such as Kansas Conference of Farm Organizations,  Federal Farm Credit Board, etc. 

The text itself was not that hard to translate, there were no difficult words, scientific terms, idioms, etc., so I would grade it with 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. 

All in all, I managed to finish it. But I definitely expect next time to be way better.