Maru (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yakalskovich) wrote2007-09-17 08:37 pm
yakalskovich) wrote2007-09-17 08:37 pm
Happily ever after
The 16-year-old son of Svava the cat's owner just rang my doorbell to ask how fairy tales are supposed to end in English. They start with 'Once upon a time', he said, but what is the closing formula? He gave the standard closing formula in German, as an example.
"And they lived happily ever after," I said.
"Happily ever after. Thanks," he said, and loped off.
Oh dear, I thought, I hope the poor kid doesn't take the concept seriously.
And then I giggled out loud, startling my cat.-
"And they lived happily ever after," I said.
"Happily ever after. Thanks," he said, and loped off.
Oh dear, I thought, I hope the poor kid doesn't take the concept seriously.
And then I giggled out loud, startling my cat.-
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I thought that might be it, but I've only seen that phrase in translation, when translators try to keep more closely to the German idiom. Thanks!
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I think 'and they lived happily ever after' is still the right translation, because you don't want to translate stuff literally. That really jars the reading experience - and reading out loud is even worse. The German translation of 'Watership Down' that I read to little Paul next door when he was still little? Totally sucked Ankh water. I had to improvise and turn sentences around and correct mistranslations on the fly - from the German version! That was one bad and fugly translation.-
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**preens**
If you make it here in December, by the way, the Lady Angela next door will already be gone, and I am already working on a cunning plan to let the Mets give me the key so my pre-Christmas guests (there might be more, but perhaps not on ht esame weekends) can have their own rooms. It will be a bit spartan, but private. No snoring at night, and no cat pouncing you if you have to get up in the night.
He is very good at sleeping in his new bed, by the way. He never sleeps pathetically on the threshold any more.
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Wann beginnen die Weihnachtsmärkte? Ich könnte (?) dich während frühen
Dezembers besuchen. Ich habe noch viele Fereintage - fast zwei wochen - aber ich muß meine famile an Weihnachten auch besuchen.
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what he said.
You can out-English most native speakers, dear.
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**blushes**