Assignment 11 (Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones' Diary)

Sinoć, oko 8.45, dok sam uživala u opuštajućoj kupki i pijuckala čaj od kamilice, začuo se alarm u kolima. Vodila sam kampanju u našoj ulici protiv ovih alarma koji su bili nepodnošljivi i bez ikakvog efekta s obzirom na to da je veća šansa bila da vam auto obije iznerviran komšija dok pokušava da ga ugasi nego provalnik.

Ovog puta, ipak, umesto da šizim i zovem policiju, samo sam duboku udahnula kroz proširene nozdrve i promrmljala: „samo staloženo”. Začulo se zvono. Javila sam se na interfon. Nadmen glas blejao je poput ovce: “On me jebeno vara”. Potom se začulo histerično jecanje. Pojurila sam dole i zatekla Magdu van zgrade, kako u bari suza čačka nešto ispod volana Džeremijevog Saab kabrioleta, iz kojeg je neopisivo glasno dolazio zavijajući zvuk, sva svetla su bila upaljena a na sedištu auta beba je plakala kao da je kolje komšijska mačka.

Ugasi to!- neko je vikao sa gornjeg prozora.

Jebeno ne mogu! – uzviknula je Magda dok je vukla haubu.

“Džerers!” – vikala je u telefon. “Džerers ti jebeno preljubničko djubre! Kako otvaraš ovu haubu Saaba!“

Helen Fielding (born 19 February 1958) is an English novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones. Her novels Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason have been published in forty countries and sold over 15 million copies.

Bridget Jones's Diary is a 1996 novel. Written in the form of a personal diary, the novel chronicles a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something single working woman living in London. Bridget is a self-involved woman concerned with her weight, appearance and securing a boyfriend. The book is written as a diary and tracks Bridget's life during a twelve-month span, beginning with her New Year's Resolutions. Caught between her Singleton friends, who are all convinced they will end up dying alone and found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian, and the Smug Marrieds, whose dinner parties offer ever-new opportunities for humiliation, Bridget struggles to keep her life on an even keel (or at least afloat). Through it all, she will have her readers helpless with laughter and shouting, 'Bridget Jones is me!

In the passage that we are given as a part of our study week assignment, Bridget describes one night in her life, when everything seemed to go wrong: she was having a bubble bath when she got a hysterical call from her friend Magda, who just found out that her husband is cheating on her.

Before starting my translation, I read a passage two times. It did not seem hard, except certain set expressions, false friends and some bad language which needed to be adjusted. During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8^th ed.), Wikipedia.com and Google.com. I found explanations for all unfamiliar words in the dictionary but for some pieces of information, like Saab convertible, I had to look up on the internet. Here are my solutions:

"counter-productive" – bez ikakvog efekta ( I think that this translation is more suitable than kontra-produktivni, which would be a literal translation)

"inner poise"- samo mirno/staloženo. She was trying to calm down, not to let herself be annoyed by an outside noise.

"A very posh sheep voice bleated" this was quite a challenge because of words posh and sheep voice which appear within the same structure. My translation of this sentence is Nadmen glas blejao je poput ovce.

"Saab convertible" – Luckily, from the context I figured out that this is a type of car. I looked up on the internet I found that Saab is a company that produces car, just like Fiat, Mercedes, etc. So I kept its name in the translation. Convertible, however, refers to the type of car whose roof can be either folded down or taken off. So my translation is Saab kabriolet.

"A dowee-dowee-dowee sound" – car emits this sound once someone breaks into it. It was not easy finding its corresponding equivalent in Serbian and the only thing that came into my mind is zavijajući zvuk.

Some swearing words were also very interesting for translation:

"Jerrers, you fucking adulterous bastard" – Džerers, ti jebeno preljubničko djubre!

"He is having a fucking affair" On me jebeno vara!. 

Once I finished my translation, I read it two times to see whether I made some mistakes and to make sure every sentence was meaningful. I didn’t make any changes. The text itself was very interesting for translation and not very hard. So I will grade it 3/10. 

Assignment 10 ( Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter)

Već osam godina zaredom, svakog 12. avgusta, Rut Jang bi izgubila svoj glas. Prvi put se to dogodilo kad se preselila u Artov stan u San Francisku. Nekoliko dana, Rut je mogla samo da pišti poput zaboravljenog  čajnika.  Mislila je da je u pitanju virus, ili mozda alergija na neku vrstu budji u zgradi.

Kad je ponovo izgubila glas, na prvu godišnjicu njihovog zajedničkog života, Art se našalio da je njen laringitis psihosomatske prirode. Rut se zapitala da li je Art u pravu. Kad je bila dete, izgubila je glas nakon što je slomila ruku. Zbog čega? Na njihovu drugu godišnjicu, Art i ona su otišli na Grand Teton da posmatraju zvezde. Prema pamfletu tog nacionalnog parka < Oko 12. Avgusta, kad aktivnost Perseidskog roja dostiže vrhunac, svakog sata na stotine zvezda padalica projure nebom. One predstavljaju delove meteora koje prodiru u zemljinu atmosferu i sagorevaju pre nego sto padnu. >

U Artovom društvu, Rut se u tišini divila igri svetlosti na tamno-baršunastom nebeskom svodu. Nije verovala da je njen laringitis izmalerisan kao ni da kiša meteora ima bilo kakve veze sa njenom nemogućnošću da govori. Mada, njena majka joj je često u detinjstvu govorila da su zvezde padalice u stvari “istopljena tela duhova” i da je loš znak videti ih, jer bi to značilo da neki duh pokušava da razgovara sa tobom. 

Amy Tan was born in Oakland (California) on February 19, 1952. She is an American writer of Chinese origin. Her complex relationship with her mother has been inspiration for many of her works.

The Bonesetter's Daughter, published in 2001, is Amy's fourth novel. Like much of her work, this novel deals with the relationship between an American-born Chinese woman and her immigrant mother.

The novel is divided into two major stories. The first is about Ruth, a Chinese-American woman living in San Francisco. She worries that her elderly mother, Lu Ling, is gradually becoming more and more demented. Lu Ling seems increasingly forgetful, and makes bizarre comments about her family and her own past. The second major story is that of Lu Ling herself, as written for Ruth. Several years earlier, Lu Ling had written out her life story in Chinese. Ruth arranges to have the document translated, and learns the truth about her mother's life in China.

Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Over the course of one fog-shrouded year, between one season of falling stars and the next, mother and daughter find what they share in their bones through heredity, history, and inexpressible qualities of love.

Before starting a translation, I read an excerpt two times. In this passage that we got as a part of our study week assignment, Ruth, the main character talks about her mysterious inability to talk on some specific occasions and describes her second anniversary with Art, spent on a mountain.

During the translation I used Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Wikipedia.com and Google.com. All unfamiliar words I managed to find in the dictionary. What I found little problematic were some set expressions, lack of knowledge when it comes to Grand Teton National Park and long sentences which needed to be translated without omitting anything important. Here are my solutions:

“For several days, Ruth could only hiss like an untended teakettle” Nekoliko dana, Rut je mogla samo da pišti poput zaboravljenog čajnika.

"Art joked that her laryngitis must be psychosomatic" Art se našalio da je njen laringitis psihosomatske prirode.

"During the peak of the Perseids, around August 12th, hundreds of 'shooting' or 'falling' stars streak the sky every hour" In order to translate this sentence I had to do a little research on the Internet. Grand Teton is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is one of the best places for stargazing and observing the Perseids, or meteor shower, when they are most likely to be seen, from July to August. As mentioned in the passage, around August 12^th, hundreds of shooting stars streak the sky every hour. Oko 12. avgusta, kad aktivnost Perseidskog roja dostiže vrhunac, na stotine zvezda padalica projure nebom svakih sat vremena. 

"light show" igra svetlosti (although in many books we can see lajt šou. In my personal opinion, transcription in this case is not an option).

"star-crossed" – dict. def: not able to be happy because of bad luck or fate. I translated it as izmalerisan, izbaksuziran

"Against the velvet blackness"  na tamno-baršunastom nebeskom svodu

After I finished my translation, I read it two times to make sure everything had sense. I didn’t change anything. The text was not hard to translate, it just took some time for research and connecting structures. My grade for this task is 3/10.