I have said this before, but possibly not on this blog, that I think it must be wonderful to be a professional musician. You put in some hard work in rehearsals and then there is the performance. At the interval – and at the end – there comes a huge amount of appreciation. [...]
Filed under: Translation, Triumphs on April 30th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I found myself in the midst of three bizarre conversations in connection with the concert.
Conversation no.1 took place at the post-concert party.
Fellow soprano to her distinguished looking male guest: Do you know, [Name], that Kerensa is a German translator and SHE says that it didn’t help at all knowing German when singing the Russian, didn’t [...]
Filed under: Music on April 27th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The concert of Russian Choral Masterpieces took place last night in the Abbey and was very well received. The applause went on for ages and, for a British audience, was really quite enthusiastic.
We made a few little mistakes – but I hope these were not too obvious. There is one place in my [...]
Filed under: Music on April 27th, 2008 | Comments Off
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow has been sitting on my shelf of “must-reads” for about 5 years. I finally got round to reading it this month. It is not a quick read; 410 pages in squint-size print but strangely absorbing.
The basic plot revolves around Smilla, half-Dane, half-Greenlander, who has an innate affinity with [...]
Filed under: Books, Denmark, Translation on April 25th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I’m just a bit offgepisst* with abbrevs., apostrophes**, little urgent jobs***, crashing docs and the general mayhem of today, so I’m off to try Jack the Lass’s houmous recipe. I’ll try Farli’s another time – I just haven’t got all the ingredients to hand.
I’ll be back at my desk later trying to make up for [...]
Filed under: Translation, Trials, Words on April 25th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
End-clients often have various specific demands and this morning was no different. A client asked me to follow the end-client’s instructions precisely. Today’s little instruction was thus: Please use the “wrong” apostrophe, that is the one on the key next to the “ß”-key. The reason for this is that our online uploading tool does not [...]
Filed under: Translation, Trials on April 25th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I had to translate some travel directions today. The project manager blithely said “It’s *just* a small job; *just* translate these directions. You’ve seen worse…”
Well, it’s true; I *have* seen worse but I’ve been paid better for it (There. That’s that little grumble over with). These directions were not written with clarity in mind [...]
Filed under: Germany, Switzerland, Translation, Trials on April 22nd, 2008 | Comments Off
Dear Readers, I think it is high time that the writer of this blog stopped shilly-shallying and got down to providing some serious posts.
So without further ado, I am going to discuss tealights. Yes, you heard me correctly at the back, so sit still and start reading.
Residents of the UK will be familiar with [...]
Filed under: Culture, Germany, Translation, Triumphs, Words on April 20th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
This is a post about odds and ends. You may want to stop reading now. I won’t be offended. [Much].
It’s funny how quite random subjects seem to come in batches. For example, the books reviewed in #10 biffed across my radar quite co-incidentally and yet had a common theme. And regular readers may remember that [...]
Filed under: Life, Translation, Words on April 20th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This review is another job lot – two this time – as they conveniently have a similar theme.
I have just returned “In Forkbeard’s Wake – Coasting around Scandinavia” by Ben Nimmo to the library (just in time to avoid a fine… another 10 minutes and the pennies would have started adding up to boost the [...]
Filed under: Books on April 19th, 2008 | 5 Comments »