{"id":31132,"date":"2016-09-04T22:26:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T02:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=31132"},"modified":"2021-09-11T13:15:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T17:15:32","slug":"sonderling-sunday-momo-meeting-beppo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=31132","title":{"rendered":"Sonderling Sunday – Momo – Meeting Beppo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Momo1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday<\/a>! That time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books, or, in this case, the English translation of a German children’s book.<\/p>\n

Today I’m going back to Momo<\/em>, by Michael Ende, the first book I purchased in Germany — and the first chance I got, too.<\/p>\n

Last time I looked at Momo<\/em>,<\/a> I left off at the start of the Viertes Kapitel<\/em> (Chapter Four). Since German is the original language, I’ll begin with the German version.<\/p>\n

Chapter 4 is called Ein schweigsamer Alter und ein zungenfertiger Junger<\/em>, but only “Two Special Friends” in English. A more direct translation is “A silent old man and a tongue-ready young man.” (Google translates zungenfertiger<\/em> as “glib.”)<\/p>\n

Here’s the first sentence, a good one to know:
\nWenn jemand auch sehr viele Freunde hat, so gibt es darunter doch immer einige wenige, die einem ganz besonders nahestehen und die einem die allerliebsten sind.<\/em>
\n= “Even when people have a great many friends, there are always one or two whom they love best of all.”<\/p>\n

teilten<\/em> = “shared”<\/p>\n

Beppo Stra\u00dfenkehrer<\/em> = “Beppo Roadsweeper”<\/p>\n

Ziegelsteinen, Wellblechst\u00fccken und Dachpappe<\/em>
\n= “bricks, corrugated iron, and tar paper”<\/p>\n

geb\u00fcckt<\/em> = “bent-backed”<\/p>\n

ein kurzer wei\u00dfer Haarschopf<\/em> = “a single tuft of white hair”<\/p>\n

This is funny how much more the translator put in:
\neine kleine Brille<\/em>
\n= “a diminutive pair of steel-rimmed spectacles”<\/p>\n

nicht ganz richtig im Kopf<\/em>
\n= “not quite right in the head”<\/p>\n

Ungenauigkeit<\/em> = “carelessness”<\/p>\n

alten, quietschenden Fahrrad<\/em> = “squeaky old bicycle”<\/p>\n

stetig<\/em> = “steadily”<\/p>\n

Besenstrich<\/em> = “stroke of the broom”<\/p>\n

Und man strengt sich noch mehr an<\/em>
\n= “And you try even harder”<\/p>\n

man kriegt es mit der Angst<\/em>
\n= “you panic”<\/p>\n

au\u00dfer Puste<\/em> = “out of breath” (“out-puffed”)<\/p>\n

Wisdom from Beppo:
\nMan mu\u00df nur an den n\u00e4chsten Schritt denken, an den n\u00e4chsten Atemzug, an den n\u00e4chsten Besenstrich.<\/em>
\n= “You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom.”<\/p>\n

Schritt f\u00fcr Schritt<\/em> = “bit by bit”<\/p>\n

wiedererkannt<\/em> = “recognized” (“again-known”)<\/p>\n

mit schr\u00e4gem Kopf<\/em> = “with his head to one side”<\/p>\n

And the last sentence about Beppo:
\nAber Momo hatte ihn lieb und bewahrte alle seine Worte in ihrem Herzen.<\/em>
\n= “But Momo loved him and treasured every word he uttered.”<\/p>\n

And I’ll stop there tonight. I think the most interesting word tonight was zungenfertiger<\/em>. May your tongue be ready!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, or, in this case, the English translation of a German children’s book. Today I’m going back to Momo, by Michael Ende, the first book I purchased in Germany — and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[256],"class_list":["post-31132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sonderling-sunday","tag-momo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40051,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31132\/revisions\/40051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}