I’ve got it! The perfect book for Coronavirus Quarantines! In Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale, the heroine and her lady are walled up in a tower for a thousand days. This will make you feel like your quarantine or self-isolating is nothing at all! So tonight’s choice for Sonderling Sunday is Das Buch der Tausend Tage.
It’s time for Sonderling Sunday, when I look at the German translations of children’s books. You can think of it as a very silly phrasebook, with all the things you never thought you’d need to say in another language, laid out for you here.
Last time, we left off ready to begin Day 795 in the tower, Tag 795. It’s on page 93 in the English edition, Seite 106 auf Deutsch. You can think about ways you might use this first sentence:
“There is an odor about my lady, like a dung heap on a hot day.”
= Meine Herrin hat einen Geruch an sich wie ein Misthaufen an einem heißen Tag.
I like the next sentence, too:
“If my script looks ill, it’s because I closed my eyes as I wrote that.”
= Wenn meine Schrift krakelig aussieht, liegt es daran, dass ich beim Schreiben die Augen geschlossen hatte.
“jailed” = eingesperrt
“tricks” = Streiche
“nibbled” = gepickt
“any quantity of flat bread”
= eine Unmenge Fladenbrot
“grumbles” = grummelt
“like a beast feeding on short grass”
= wie ein Tier, das niedriges Gras abweidet
“Strangely” = Komischerweise
“vomited” = sich erbrach
“stored grain” = gelagertem Mehl
“dump” = kippen
“squeaking madly” = quieken wie verrückt
“just to laugh at me” = nur um mich auszulachen
“limbs” = Glieder
“It’s such a relief!”
= Was für eine Erleichterung!
“We’ll find a way.”
= Wir werden einem Weg finden.
“mortar” = Mörtel
“scraping” = weggekratzt
“Rat meat is not tasty.”
= Rattenfleisch schmeckt nicht himmlisch.
“stringy meat” = sehnige Fleisch
“chewed and swallowed” = kaute und schluckte
Gotta do this one!
“odd” = sonderbar
And I’ll finish up with a sentence at the end of Day 928:
“It makes me smile to think of how brilliant they are at surviving.”
= Ich muss lächeln, weil sie so fantastische Überlebenskünstler sind.
That’s enough for tonight! No matter how long you end up staying home in the coming weeks, I hope you never have occasion to use very many of these phrases! Bis bald!