It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! That time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books.
This week, I’ve got the third book of the Jinx trilogy waiting for me to read it, so in the spirit of anticipation, today I’m going to look again at the translation of the first book, Jinx und der magische Urwald.
When I started looking at Jinx, we left off on page 6 in the English version, Seite 12 in German.
It’s all in the name of handy-dandy phrases to know:
“valuable curse” = wertvollen Fluch
“the fear was ripply with greed” = seine Angst kräuselte sich vor Gier
“a crunching sound” = ein Knacken zu hören
“terrifying gloom” = schaurige Finsternis
“a rotten cabbage leaf” = ein verfaultes Kohlblatt
“the hollow scrabble of clawed feet on the forest earth”
= das dumpfe Scharren von Tatzen auf dem Waldboden
“Several things happened at once.”
= In diesem Moment passierten mehrere Dinge gleichzeitig.
(“In this moment passed more things at the same time.”)
“heavy, ragged breathing” = schwerem, keuchendem Atem
“a smell like rotting meat” = Verwesungsgeruch
(I like that there’s a single word for this. “Decay-smell”)
“they were so big and tusky”
= sie waren riesig und hatten gewaltige Stoßzähne
(“they were giant and had huge tusks”)
This is more dramatic in German:
“The wizard reached out and grabbed Jinx.”
= Blitzschnell packte der Zauberer Jinx.
(“Lightning-fast grabbed the magician Jinx.”)
And here’s another cool single word:
“cloud of calm” = Ruhewolke
And again:
“howled with glee” = johlten
But then this takes more:
“and danced about” = und vollführten einen Freudentanz
(“and performed a joy-dance”)
“breeze” = Luftzug
“swallowed up” = verschluckt
This time the translation seems slightly stronger:
“the smell of rotting meat” = der Verwesungsgestank
“a very small thing” = eine Winzigkeit
Interesting! The translator completely left out a sentence: “He assumed that everyone did this and that everyone could see what he saw.” Then again, I’m using an Advance Review Copy of the book, and it’s quite possible that sentence was left out of the final version of the book.
A sonder-sentence:
“I don’t expect you’ll miss him very much”
= Du wirst ihn bestimmt nicht sonderlich vermissen
(“You will him certainly not especially miss”)
“a red cloud of anger” = eine rote Wutwolke
“But now what?” = Aber was nun?
“clearings” = Lichtungen
“stealthy rustlings” = verstohlene Geräusche
“I have some bad habits.”
= Ich habe ein paar schlecte Angewohnheiten
There! That finishes Chapter One of Jinx
Aber was nun? Here’s hoping this week you encounter more Ruhewolken than Wutwolken.