The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2350
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14164

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:03 am

Español
Since my last post, I have finished a few books in Spanish. Partly inspired by rdearman's French reading of books he never got around to (which where given to him, that he probably wouldn't have chosen himself), I am reading books that I never got around to that I bought in hard-copy. I don't know how long I've had some of these books in Spanish lying around for years. Some were picked up in airports. Some were bought online and some were bought in bookstores while traveling. Learning multiple languages means that something has to give, to be left behind. While I was learning Portuguese, Ladino, Haitian Creole and Catalan, Spanish was a lower priority, that's why I ended up with this backlog of books to read... and, well... they aren't going to read themselves are they? So, looks I have a few more books to go through in Spanish for a while.

The thing about reading in Spanish for me is it's almost as easy to read as my native English. I don't use a dictionary except for a handful of words. Spanish is the language I run into on a daily basis here. Though I don't live in a Spanish-speaking country or island, it's here... all the time.

"El lector de Julio Verne", by Almudena Grandes, was a book that I quite enjoyed. Set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in the late 1940's and 50's, the tone is somber. Nino, the main character, is the 9 year old son of a Guardia Civil stationed in a very small town where everybody knows everybody else and most of their business as well. Ostensibly at peace now, the war is never ending. It's just moved onto another stage at a lower level. The brutalization keeps on going. I'm not going to give away the story by writing a synopsis here, but I do want to recommend the book. First, it is well written. Ms Grandes brings her characters alive in a way that the best writers can do. Writing in the voice of a child is not easy. Even though we were all children once, we tend to forget how we felt back then when we were discovering the world in which we lived. That magic is brought back to us through the character of Nino. He befriends "Pepe el portugués" a man in his late 20's who lives alone in an old mill house by a stream. Pepe and Nino become fast friends. Pepe gives Nino a Jules Verne novel to read. Nino discovers how literature can transport a reader anywhere and anywhen, despite the reality in which they may live.

Nino, as a result of his reading and being led to see that the world is more than his dreary circumstances, becomes more than what would be expected of him. He knows that he doesn't want to be like his father and become a Guardia Civil when he grows up. His father for a long while doesn't believe his son will ever be tall enough to be accepted. So he pays for nino to take private typing and stenography lessons at the house of a Republican mother and her daughters whose male family members were killed by the Nationalists, or, are still hiding out in the mountains. The education he receives from these women and Pepe el portugués is much more than he would ever get from school. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it and I will read more of her work in the future.

Civil wars aren't as black and white as they may seem on a cursory level. There are all kinds of shades of gray. Tragedy and violence is most often on a somewhat different and often more sinister level than wars between countries. The Spanish Civil War was certainly tragic and violent.

Continuing on the theme of the Spanish Civil War. I have now completed the "Falcó" series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. APR was a war correspondent for two decades. As a journalist in war-torn areas of the world from Lebanon to Boznia, he has witnessed his share of tragedy and violence. His journalistic career was good preparation for being a novelist. Some people find his work to be tiring and too "macho". Regardless of personal opinion, I can say that I am not the only one who thinks that APR is a master of the Spanish language. His books are well written.

The "Falcó" series is a trilogy of novels set during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's. The main character Falcó is an agent of the Nationalist intelligence agency and answers to an admiral "El jabalí ". Reading Falcó, you can't help but notice the similarities to 007, James Bond. Danger and women... dangerous women... spycraft. Since I don't fall in the far right political spectrum, I must admit that I had trouble rooting for this guy. It's the quality of the writing and bringing the ambience alive that won me over.

The late 1930's in Europe were a tumultuous time to say the least. The Great Depression was in its last throes and world war was on the horizon. It was being played out on a smaller stage, off-Broadway, in Spain as an opening act before it went on the road. Poetry and literature were rising to a crescendo- García-Lorca; Pablo Neruda; Ernest Hemingway; Dashiell Hammett; Orwell; Huxley; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Steinbeck; and Kafka (among many others) were stalwarts of the scene. Paris and Madrid were two of the spots to find many of these authors.

The true scale of the horrors of Stalin and Hitler would come to light a few years later, though, they were there at that time in the background... and, even in the foreground. Spain was the proving ground for the worldwide conflagration. The great powers of the West wanted to stay out of Spain. The Axis was eager to take part.

APR brings all this tumult and intrigue to life. The first novel- Falcó introduces us to this hard-boiled spy. Perhaps it was the book cover that drew me in. The trench coat, fedora and cigarette certainly suggested it would be my kind of a book.



The first book, "Falcó" introduces us to the man and the milieu. The plot is a daring raid across enemy lines to rescue a leading Spanish fascist from a Republican prison in Alicante. There is plenty of intrigue with the Franquistas, the Nazis, the Republicans and a Soviet undercover agent. To paraphrase rdearman, "I like books where stuff happens". This book does not disappoint if you like action, adventure, and espionage. It's definitely a page-turner. If you've read "La reina del sur" by the same author, then you know what I'm talking about.

In this series, for me the ambience of the time and places is as much of a character in the novels as any of the people in the plot. The clothes, the pop-culture, the prevalence of smoking (I am a non-smoker!), the cocktail culture, the intellectuals, the music, the politics, are all part of that place and time. For me these were four of the best books, I've read all year in any language. I'll be back in a few days to share more of the other two books in the series- "Eva" and "Sabotaje" by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.





Suspiros de España
20 x

User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2350
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14164

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Aug 05, 2021 4:35 pm

Spanish
I've gone through the entire Falcó series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte now. Of the three, my favorite was "Eva". Eva is an agent for Soviet intelligence working in Spain on behalf of the Republicans. The premise of the story is that the special agent for the Nationalists, Lorenzo Falcó, is being sent to Tangiers in order to gain control of a merchant ship carrying the gold from the Spanish treasury. It was sailing to transfer the gold for safe-keeping in Russia during the war... but the war broke out and the ship is stuck in port at Tangiers along with a nationalist ship that wants the boat to surrender or it will be blown up and sunk. Since Tangiers is an international city administered by the French, Spanish, British, and the Sultan of Morocco... conflict is forbidden while in the port and only allowed in international waters. Obviously, intrigue abounds. Falcó's job is to get the boat to surrender its cargo. Eva's job is to stop Falcó. The two have a steamy history together from the first novel.

The book has more than a superficial resemblance to the movie Casablanca with the Moroccan setting and several characters resembling characters from the classic film. There's a thin, gay character who is reminiscent of Sr. Ugarti and a corpulent character who reminds me of Sr. Ferrari. The resemblance is most likely not accidental.

What Pérez-Reverte does in this book is bring alive the times and scenery of late 1930's Tangiers. He is a very good writer and has the skill to put the reader in this world. APR has his faults, while his novels are very evocative of time and place, his male protagonists are quite macho almost to the extreme... James Bond on steroids. APR definitely keeps the story moving on. As I've said before, it's hard to care about a nationalist agent and his cause, but APR manages to keep the politics of the situation on the sidelines and primarily concentrates on the action. It's almost as if the Civil War is a sideshow. Falcó is pretty much playing his own game.

Of the three books, "Eva" was my favorite. Though the book can be read on its own without the prerequisite of reading the first book- "Falcó", more satisfaction will be had by reading the first book. I really like this book.



The last book in the trilogy is "Sabotaje". Falcó's mission is twofold. One is to neutralize a French adventurer who gave the Republic its first air force and flew daring missions against the Nationalists. The other assignment is to stop Pablo Picasso from exhibiting his iconic work in progress, Guernica, at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. So, he's in Paris in the late 1930's... a city full of art, artists, writers, poets, singers, refugees and espionage. Once again, the book is very evocative of time and place with plenty of intrigue and suspense. After the first two books, "Sabotaje" doesn't have quite the same intensity but it is still a worthwhile read and I enjoyed it.





Next, I am reading two books. With so much Spanish this past few weeks, I've been feeling that I've been neglecting Catalan... which... well... it's true. So as I said before in my log around Christmas time, I had stopped reading "L'home flac" (The Thin Man) by Dashiell Hammett after reading just five chapters. For some reason, I just couldn't get into it at the time. I said I'd get back to it later. Well, it's later and I'm almost halfway through the book now and I'm enjoying it.



This time there are almost two protagonists- Nick Charles, private investigator, and his wife Nora. There's a murder of a young woman who worked for one of Nick's acquaintances/former client. Another young woman who is this guy's daughter and the ex-wife... the Wynants.

This will make the sixth Dashiell Hammett novel I've read in Catalan. I can't find any more translations in the language. Like all of Hammett's books, it reads almost like a screenplay for a film (of course, a film was made- see trailer below), which of course is great for a language-learner as it is almost all conversation and first person narration.



At the same time, I am reading "El señor de los cielos" by Andrés López López. He is an ex-narcotraficante himself. A Colombian arrested and imprisoned forseveral years in the US. The book is about the leader of the largest drug cartel in Mexico, half myth and half man, his rise and fall and the corruption that goes along with it.

The book is written in short chapters of four or five pages (hard copy) in a very colloquial (Mexican) language. In spite of the author's Colombian heritage he seems to have mastered Mexican swearing- "pinche" this, "ojete" that. The book was made into a very successful telenovela on telemundo for several seasons, which I haven't seen. Not bad at all, for an ex-con.

He's also written, continuing on with the narco theme, two books about "El cártel de los sapos" and one about "El Chapo Gúzman". I bought the book in the Miami airport once, I guess it must have been on my way back home.
Image
I'm about a third of the way in. I thought I could read it along with "L'home flac", but it's just not working out that way. After I finish "L'home flac", I'll pick it back up so I can knock it off of the list.

So back to the Olympics- USA to the gold medal game in baseball against Japan, but I can't find Spanish audio for it!

¡Hasta la próxima, amigos y amigas!

Edit: found another book translated into Catalan where an author uses Dashiell Hammett as a character- "Hammett" by Joe Gores. Well, Radioclare has Agatha Christie and I have Dashiell Hammett. Maybe I'll read him in our common language, English, some day.
16 x

User avatar
PeterMollenburg
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3226
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2015 11:54 am
Location: Australia
Languages: English (N), French (B2-certified), Dutch (High A2?), Spanish (~A1), German (long-forgotten 99%), Norwegian (false starts in 2020 & 2021)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18080
x 8006

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Aug 06, 2021 8:14 am

iguanamon wrote:Maybe I'll read him in our common language, English, some day.

:o
Noooooo!!! Don't do it!!!
2 x

User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2350
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14164

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:20 pm

Catalan
There are only 20 pages left to read in "L'home flac"/"The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett. Reading Catalan is not as easy for me as reading in my other languages. I still have so much to learn. It's hard to have to look up so many words. I understand why those learning their first second language get frustrated with it... but even though it's hard I find it very useful.

I learn new words and phrases I can make note of and use in Catalan. The more I do in reading, listening and using Catalan, the better I will be in the language. It's worth the hassle and frustration. It does take me much more time to read a novel in Catalan than in Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, Haitian Creole or Djudeo-espanyol/Ladino. One reason is I like to make note of turns phrase to use, and, since I need to acquire vocabulary, I look up words that I can't quite make out from context.

As I've said before, Hammett's books are conversation heavy, almost like screenplays, which is way so many of them were made into films and inspired filmmakers. He is the father of the noir novel. After I finish "L'home flac", there are no more Hammett translations for me to read in Catalan.

People may wonder, how similar is Catalan to Spanish? Is it closer to French. The first question can be answered by saying it is close to Spanish, yet the differences are many and not just in vocabulary. Obviously, that's why it's a separate language. Let's look at two passages here in parallel format:
Dashiell Hammet- L'home flac wrote:Catalan
Nora digué: —Et fas veure, ve-t’ho aquí. I què en treus? Jo ja sé que les bales reboten quan troben el teu cos. No cal que m’ho demostris.

—No em farà mal si m’aixeco.
—Tampoc no et farà cap mal estar-te al llit almenys un dia. El metge ha dit…
—Si tingués dos dits de ciència es curaria les seves vegetacions. Vaig incorporar-me i després vaig posar els peus a terra. Asta me’ls va llepar.
Nora em portà les sabatilles i la bata.
—Està bé, superhome, lleva’t i dessagna’t sobre la catifa.
Amb cautela vaig posar-me dret i em semblà que tot aniria bé mentre no fes moviments bruscos amb el braç esquerre i procurés que Asta no em potegés.

—Entra en raó —vaig dir—. No volia mesclar-me amb tota aquesta gent… ni ara tampoc… Però les coses se m’acumulen. Bé, no puc limitar-me a fer-me cap a un costat. Haig de veure què passa.
—TODO ESO NO ES MÁS que presunción. Eso es lo que es —me dijo Nora—. Y maldita la falta que hace. Demasiado sé que las balas te rebotan. No tienes que demostrármelo.
—No me pasará nada si me levanto.
—Y no te pasará nada si te quedas en la cama, al menos un día. El médico dijo…
—Si el médico supiera algo se curaría su propio catarro —me senté en la cama y puse los pies en el suelo. Asta me hizo cosquillas lamiéndomelos.
Nora me trajo la bata y las zapatillas.
—Está bien, bravucón, levántate y desángrate sobre la alfombra.
Me puse en pie con circunspección, y todo pareció ir bien con tal de no tomarme excesivas libertades con el brazo izquierdo y de no ponerme al alcance de las patas de Asta.
—Sé razonable —dije—. Yo no quería complicarme con esta gente y sigo sin quererlo, pero ¡para lo que me está sirviendo! No puedo salir de todo ello a tropezones. Tengo que ver las cosas.

As can be seen above, it's similar enough but definitely different. I'm lucky to have my other languages available to help me.

I don't yet know what I may read next in Catalan, but whatever it is, I have to keep it up or it will wither. There is certainly plenty from which to choose. There is a price to play for being multi-lingual. It is indeed like the old-time "plate spinners" of yore. If I don't shake the stick every now and then, I can't keep those plates spinning. They will fall down.



I should probably go back to the first season of the Catalan sitcom "Plats Bruts" and put those first season transcripts to use in honing my listening skills, and building more everyday conversational ability.

Spanish
After the Olympics, it's back to Major League Baseball. I watched the LA Dodgers against the Philadelphia Phillies last night in Spanish.

I'm up to a third of the way through the book "El señor de los cielos". Usually, I'm just not that into "Narco-novelas". I am a long way from Mexico and I only know two Mexicans on the island, so learning more Mexican slang is not something I really need... but it's fun. Thanks to telenovelas, Mexican slang is known here in the Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico where Telemundo's reach is broad.

This book has plenty of action, as rdearman says "things happen"- and rather quickly and often. It will be a quick read. It's starting to grow on me. I'm liking it. Here's an interview with the author talking about the book and his past as a narco himself. Who better to write about the narco-traficante scene than a narco-traficante himself?!



After this book, I have several more to read in Spanish to knock off my hardcopy list, thanks to rdearman's inspiration. They aren't going to read themselves.

Edit: iIt's hard to get the lining up right in this format for parallel text
Last edited by iguanamon on Thu Aug 12, 2021 8:26 pm, edited 4 times in total.
16 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3480
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9315

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby Le Baron » Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:52 pm

That's an interesting side-by-side comparison. Reading the Catalan at first glance it might as well be Persian for all I can make of it and yet when I actually listen to Catalan I can pick out much more. Obviously I am nowhere near any proficiency in Spanish, but I am in French, Still, Catalan feels 'Spanish' to me overall.

I watched a video some time ago from that Ecolinguist channel where he puts two/three speakers against one speaker of a more-or-less distantly-related language. In that case it was Catalan with a Spanish and French speaker. They're hardly 'scientific', but you can see the Spanish speaker is more comfortable, while the French speaker just has tiny eureka moments on a word or phrase here and there. :lol:
2 x

User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2350
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14164

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Aug 12, 2021 7:54 pm

Le Baron wrote:That's an interesting side-by-side comparison. Reading the Catalan at first glance it might as well be Persian for all I can make of it and yet when I actually listen to Catalan I can pick out much more. Obviously I am nowhere near any proficiency in Spanish, but I am in French, Still, Catalan feels 'Spanish' to me overall. ...

Good observation, Le Baron. Yes, I find it closer to Spanish in grammar and pronunciation, also in vocabulary. Let's have a look at the same passage from the start of Chapter 9 of "L'home flac/The Thin Man" with a parallel text of Catalan and French. The French translation is titled L'Introuvable. "Asta" is the name of Nick and Nora's dog:
Dashiell Hammet- L'home flac wrote:Catalan
Nora digué: —Et fas veure, ve-t’ho aquí. I què en treus? Jo ja sé que les bales reboten quan troben el teu cos. No cal que m’ho demostris.

—No em farà mal si m’aixeco.
—Tampoc no et farà cap mal estar-te al llit almenys un dia. El metge ha dit…
—Si tingués dos dits de ciència es curaria les seves vegetacions. Vaig incorporar-me i després vaig posar els peus a terra. Asta me’ls va llepar.

Nora em portà les sabatilles i la bata.

—Està bé, superhome, lleva’t i dessagna’t sobre la catifa.

Amb cautela vaig posar-me dret i em semblà que tot aniria bé mentre no fes moviments bruscos amb el braç esquerre i procurés que Asta no em potegés.
—Entra en raó —vaig dir—. No volia mesclar-me amb tota aquesta gent… ni ara tampoc… Però les coses se m’acumulen. Bé, no puc limitar-me a fer-me cap a un costat. Haig de veure què passa.
—— Tu veux crâner, voilà tout, dit Nora. Et pourquoi ? Je sais bien que les balles ricochent sur toi. Inutile de me le prouver une fois de plus.
— Ça ne me fera pas de mal de me lever, protestai-je.
— Ça ne te fera pas de mal de rester au lit au moins une journée, répondit-elle ; le docteur a dit…
— Celui-là ! Si ce n’était pas un âne, il se guérirait de ses reniflements !
Je m’assis et posai mes pieds sur le tapis. Asta se précipita pour me lécher les orteils.
Nora m’apportait mes pantoufles et ma robe de chambre.
— C’est ça, Tarzan, lève-toi et pisse le sang sur les couvertures.
Je me soulevai avec précaution. Tout allait bien si je ne bougeais pas mon bras gauche et si j’évitais les cabrioles d’Asta.
— Sois raisonnable, dis-je. Je ne voulais pas m’embringuer dans cette histoire, mais maintenant je ne peux plus me défiler comme ça. Il va falloir que j’y fourre le nez.


Certainly, my knowledge of French Creole languages' vocabulary is a help, as well as Ladino and Portuguese in parsing Catalan. The parallel texts here are of course, not literal translations as the translator needs to make the translation as close to the original English as possible, yet at the same time, natural for the L1 audience to read too. It's a fine line to dance. Hammett uses a lot of idioms and slang in his novels. The translation often doesn't quite get the English slang right, but it's close and that's what matters.

The similarity with French can be seen in what's not similar to Spanish. Look at the words "no volia"/jen voudrais pas. You can see more of a similarity with French in the Catalan verb "voler" and (I think) vouloir in French. It's definitely not similar to "querer" in Spanish.

Here is the same passage in the English-language original:
Dashiell Hammett- The Thin Man Ch 9 wrote:Nora said: "You're just showing off, that's all it is. And what for? I know bullets bounce off you. You don't have to prove it to me."
"It's not going to hurt me to get up."
"And it's not going to hurt you to stay in bed at least one day. The doctor said--"
"If he knew anything he'd cure his own snuffles." I sat up and put my feet on the floor. Asta tickled them with her tongue.
Nora brought me slippers and robe. "All right, hard guy, get up and bleed on the rugs."
I stood up cautiously and seemed to be all right as long as I went easy with my left arm and kept out of the way of Asta's front feet.
"Be reasonable," I said. "I didn't want to get mixed up with these people--still don't--but a fat lot of good that's doing me. Well, I can't just blunder out of it. I've got to see."

You'll have to see for yourselves how faithful the translations are to the original. Sometimes they leave out whole sentences. What I can say is that while they are not amazing translations, they do give to the L1 readers what the author is trying to convey in English. Hammett is very well respected in Catalan literary circles. I'm sure that most of his Catalan readers read his books in translation.

Then again, "lost in translation" is why many of us learn foreign languages. There is indeed a lot that's lost in translation- a lot of the flavor and some of the nuances of meaning are lost. Not all is left out, but enough. If there wasn't we could all just use translation apps and not bother to learn a language. The translator, Josep Vallverdú (a respected Catalan author) decided to skip on translating "fat lot of good that's going to do me" in Catalan. That's a shame. I may need it someday!
10 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3480
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9315

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby Le Baron » Fri Aug 13, 2021 12:52 am

Yes, when I look closer I see things like:

"Però les coses se m’acumulen..." I know però from Spanish, but then the rest just looks like les choses s'accumulent.

Looking through line-by-line I can see things that I can sort of map to French, but the match is rough. It works if I jig the words around and use calques.
1 x

tractor
Green Belt
Posts: 377
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:58 am
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English, Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Latin
x 766

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby tractor » Sat Aug 14, 2021 8:18 pm

iguanamon wrote:The parallel texts here are of course, not literal translations as the translator needs to make the translation as close to the original English as possible, yet at the same time, natural for the L1 audience to read too.

Two people translating the same novel into the same language will make different decisions and choose different solutions, making two different translations.

I guess that the translations of The Thin Man into Catalan and Spanish would have been closer to each other had they been done by the same translator.
3 x

User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2350
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14164

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Aug 19, 2021 5:38 pm

Wow, I just discovered after posting, that this is my 2000th post! I can't believe I've made this many posts here after six years on this forum.

Catalan
"L'home flac/The Thin Man" is now in the bag. When I first started several months ago, I just couldn't get into it. That's probably because it was different to Hammett's other novels in that there wasn't the hard-boiled detective on his own getting into the dirt. In "L'home flac" it was Nick and Nora Charles together, albeit with Nick doing most of the detective work. The setting wasn't gritty like "Personville/Poisonville" in "Collita Roja/Red Harvest", nor foggy San Francisco in "El falcó maltès/The Maltese Falcon". Instead, it was glitzy Manhattan around 1930 with speakeasies and high-rises.

The last chapter is where everything gets tied up. It's pretty dense. and takes longer to read than the other chapters, but it's worth it. All in all, I enjoyed the book. There was witty repartee between Nick and Nora and sufficient mystery to keep me interested. For a book written 87 years ago in a different time and a different world to the one we live in today, it reads like a modern novel.

For language-learners, I would recommend reading Dashiell Hammett in translation. There is lots of conversation and enough to keep the reader interested.

Instead of continuing on with the book "Hammett" by Joe Gores, I am reading now "Tots els camins porten a Romania- Un cas del detectiu Rafel Rovira" by Ramon Usall i Santa.
Image
"Tots camins..." was written in 2007. I am about 40% through the book now and I am quite enjoying it. The detective, Rafel Rovira, lives and works in Lleida (I've never been there). He loves the town's dreary fog and drizzle, which no one else seems to understand. Most of his cases involve following unfaithful spouses. He loves the novel-la negra of the "la cua de palla"collection, like I do, apparently.
Ramon Usall wrote:En fi, que per primera vegada se sentia una mica com els protagonistes d’aquelles groguenques novel·les policíaques de La Cua de Palla, que tant li agradava llegir... Però, és clar, en una ciutat com Lleida no es podia aspirar a casos com els que publicava la mítica col·lecció de novel·la policíaca «La cua de palla» i que el Rafel llegia cada nit abans d’anar a dormir. La Lleida d’en Rovira no era la Nova York dels personatges de Dashiell Hammett, ni tan sols la Barcelona de Pepe Carvalho.

Those yellow covers of the "la cua de palla" collection is how they are. Of course, en Rafel Rovira is a Hammett fan. The author, Ramon Usall i Santa ran for Parliament under the banner of the CUP. He explains a bit about himself and his philosophy here:



There is no English translation for this book available, but I don't have to work the dictionary in this book like I did with the Hammett novels. Maybe I'm progressing. Some pages, I don't have to look up even one word. Other pages, it's three or four. So, I'm happy.

The book has a lot of atmosphere about Lleida and contemporary Catalunya. En Rafel is a "culé de Barça"- a big fan of the Barça football team. He goes down to the bar for a coffee and a piece of tortilla. He's an independista.
His friend is a "Mosso d'Esquadra"- a police officer. The private detective en Rafel told his friend a joke which he didn't like very much:
Ramon Usall i Santa wrote:¿Saps en què s’assemblen una puta embarassada i un uniforme de la Guàrdia Civil?
—Ni idea!
—En què els dos porten un fill de puta dintre! Què et sembla, Rafel? És dels teus aquest, eh!
—No està mal, no. Però ¿no has pensat que també poden contar-lo dels Mossos d’Esquadra?


The story is about the murder of a Romanian immigrant who was once part of the Ceaucescu government... and as the title of the book suggests- all roads lead to Romania. At this point in the book, our protagonist hasn't left Lleida yet for Bucharest, but he will soon.

Spanish
Well, I'm not moving quickly through "El senyor de los cielos", my narco-novela because I decided to read some more Catalan, but, I am 60% through the book now. I like it. Also, I am still watching baseball in Spanish. After I finish, "El señor de los cielos" I have two more books to read in Spanish- "Carlota" by Mexican author Laura Martínez-Belli (niece of author/poet Gioconda Belli of Nicaragua). This is a historical novel about the wife of Emperor Maximillian I, Empress Carlota del Segundo Imperio (1860's) when she first came to Mexico.
.

I also have the novel by Paloma Bravo- "Las Incorrectas" to read in hard-copy. Both of these novels are very different than the spy/noir/narco novels I've been reading lately. I enjoy reading in Spanish and mixing it up.
13 x

User avatar
IronMike
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2554
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 6:13 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Languages: Studying: Esperanto
Maintaining: nada
Tested:
BCS, 1+L/1+R (DLPT5, 2022)
Russian, 3/3 (DLPT5, 2022) 2+ (OPI, 2022)
German, 2L/1+R (DLPT5, 2021)
Italian, 1L/2R (DLPT IV, 2019)
Esperanto, C1 (KER skriba ekzameno, 2017)
Slovene, 2+L/3R (DLPT II in, yes, 1999)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5189
x 7264
Contact:

Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby IronMike » Thu Aug 19, 2021 10:36 pm

iguanamon wrote:Wow, I just discovered after posting, that this is my 2000th post! I can't believe I've made this many posts here after six years on this forum.

When I did a special post (1967, not 2000, because birthday), I held a giveaway. Hint hint. ;)
1 x
You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests