Russian translation of La Musica delle Parole

[linndechir]

I've always thought that the greatest compliment one could pay a writer was to offer to translate their work, especially when it's fanfiction and the translator doesn't get paid for his or her efforts, they don't even get an awful lot of recognition for it. A year or two ago someone translated a few of my Forgotten Realms fanfics into Chinese, of all languages; I was proud beyond words. Because it's one thing to send someone a quick review saying "I loved your story". It's an entirely different thing to take the time to translate said story into another language. I've done translations myself, I know how much work it is, but usually only the author gets praise, not the translator.

Soooo, all this rambling just to post a link and a thank-you. puppenmorder  translated part one of La Musica delle Parole into Russian. I am more flattered than I could possibly say. I'm all the happier about this because La Musica is probably one of the best things I ever wrote, and definitely one of my favourites among my own writing. For those of you who do speak Russian, and I know I have a couple on my f-list, if you're interested, you can find the translation here. I know I'm just advertising here, but I feel that puppenmorder  deserves some, or rather a lot of recognition for this. Unfortunately my Russian is not good enough yet to read the translation myself (except with a dictionary while looking up 90% of all words ;)), but a Russian friend of mine told me that it's very well done.

Click here for the translation

Again, puppenmorder , thank you so much! I hope you don't mind my rambling here, but I just felt the urge to express my gratitude more publicly than just in a PM to you. :)

Speaking of Russian, I have a Russian test tomorrow and really should go to bed now instead of babbling on my lj. ;)

Comments

[cat-irix.livejournal.com]

One day you'll be able to read the translations of your stories, and probably even to translate them yourself - isn't it something to look forward to?

Until after Jun 4, of course. Replying to comments and emails is ok, I don't get a lot of them anyway. But no games and non-educational entertainment. "Il faut des rites"... (my favourite phrase from Le Petite Prince, which we had studied during my French course).

Pity I can't put flowers on his grave. (I bought them for him, anyway.)

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm too lazy to translate them myself. ;) But reading them would be nice of course.

Yes, I thought so, just wanted to ask. I think I'd just get severely depressed if I forced myself to think about this for over a week. I'd rather think about happier things, i.e. his life. But you know me, I'm a wuss and I need happy endings.

Is that a request? I wouldn't mind, but I told you that I'm not sure where exactly his grave is. Should I just put flowers somewhere on the cemetery? I just dread the possibility that there might be a bunch of brainless neonazis on June 4th.

[cat-irix.livejournal.com]

Oh, it could be awesome if you do - from both of us! I understand that it's next to impossible to find the exact location of his grave, but I trust you to do whatever you see fit - the intention counts. Of course if it's not a lot of trouble - I wouldn't want to get you severely depressed! and neither to clash with neonazis.

(Heh, I can't even translate my own fics from English into Russian, in spite of Russian being my mother tongue - I had tried, just for fun, and it sounds way too awkward. But you express yourself a lot better with words, so it may be possible when you learn the language properly.)

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think paying him a visit would get me all that depressed - just thinking about his death for a week would. I probably won't be able to go there on Friday anyway, but I might just go there the day before. I will definitely tell you if I do. :)

I think literary translations are just insanely difficult. I once translated one of my German fics into English (the Hellstrom/Stiglitz-one), and it was such a pain, it sounded all wrong.