It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! The time to be nerdy and play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books – sort of a silly phrasebook for unserious travelers.
And this time – I actually have a trip booked to go back to Germany for my 60th birthday, happening in a month and a half! So all the more reason to revive these posts! Want to get the tune of German in my head again.
This week, I’m going back to one of my favorite novels of all time, Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale, in German Das Buch der Tausend Tage.
[And hey, Book of a Thousand Days is one of the best young adult fantasy novels ever written – I mean that completely – and if you’re local to me and have a Fairfax County Public Library card, we just purchased a simultaneous use eaudiobook license for a year to the audiobook on Libby (along with many other backlist titles). This is a full cast production and is amazing. Check it out!]
What I do with Sonderling Sunday is look at sections of the book with interesting German translations. I try not to give away the plot, but do try to pique your curiosity.
Last time we looked at this book, we finished Part One, with the two of them trapped in a tower for not quite a thousand days. We are now on “Part 2 The Adventure Thereafter” = Zweiter Teil Das nachfolgende Abenteuer
“I decided to start numbering the days at one again to mark the time when we began anew.”
= Ich beschloss, mit der Nummerierung der Tage wieder bei Eins anzufangen um den Neubeginn deutlich zu machen.
“Who can sleep when there’s real air to breathe?”
= Wer kann schon schlafen, wenn es richtige Luft zum Atmen gibt?
“the news” = der Neuigkeit
“relieved” = erleichtert
“waffled” = schwankte
“tetchy” = ungeduldig (“impatient”)
“a sulky sheep” = ein unwilliges Schaf (“an unwilling sheep”)
“It was nearly dawn.” = Die Dämmerung nahte.
“My lady kept her eyes squeezed shut.”
= Meine Herrin kniff die Augen zu.
I like that schlepped is really a German word:
“I dragged her inside.”
= Ich schleppte sie wieder in den Turm.
“hoarse” = heiser
Love those long words:
“grain husks” = Getreidehülsen
“tossed” = beiseitewerfen (“beside-threw”)
“brushes and ink” = Pinsel und Tinte
“moan” = jammern
“shadow world” = Schattenwelt
“I draped a blanket over her head”
= Ich legte ihr ein Tuch auf den Kopf
“stumbled” = taumelte
“strange” = sonderbar (I did mention it’s not always a nice meaning of “special”?)
“whispers” = Geflüster
“her brain awry in her head and her understanding tilted steep
= ihr Hirn liegt schief im Kopf und ihr Witz ist hinten rübergekippt
(“her brain is crooked in her head and her wit is backwards”)
“a gray smudge” = eine grau verwischte Linie
(“a gray blurred line”)
A word for this in German:
“the trees that line the road” = der Bäume am Straßenrand
“crept” = schlich
“As I climbed atop the heaping rubble”
= Als ich den Geröllberg erklomm
“teemed” = gewimmelt
Last sentence from Day 5:
“She is not well.”
= Es geht ihr schlecht.
That’s it for today. We’re finishing up on page 118 in the English edition, Seite 130 auf Deutsch.
On my vacation in June, I’m looking forward to seeing der Bäume am Straßenrand!
Bis bald!