Kleine Freie Männer
I’m currently about 50 pages into Kleine Freie Männer, and I’m really enjoying it. Granted, the first few pages were rather hard work, and I had to consult my English-language original pretty regularly, but I’ve gotten back into the swing of things and have gotten to where I only need to check the original a few times a page, usually to confirm a word. I find myself rather geekily pleased when I can read several reasonable-sized paragraphs straight, and understand them clearly. (Granted, it’s technically a young adult novel, but given that I haven’t really used my German vocab since college, I’m just happy that I can still handle the various past tenses.)
The translation by Andreas Brandhorst (who seems to have translated pretty much all of Pratchett’s novels) is really rather good. Some jokes inevitably have to go, when they rely too heavily on English; others get adapted to make as much sense as possible while still maintaining some sense of the original. Some of these work better than others, I think, but given how amazingly hard that sort of thing would be, I stand in awe whenever they work at all. One of my favorites is a sign for a grammar teacher, among whose offerings was the chance to get “I before E completely sorted out.” In German, at least as far as I have ever seen, that’s not really a concern, because native non-borrowed German words are spelled with an admirable consistency that matches the pronunciation: if it’s “i before e,” it’s pronounced “eee”; if it’s “e before i,” it’s pronounced “eye.” As long as you know how to say a word, you should be able to spell it. Thus, the translator substituted a German-appropriate variation: “Das Problem mit dem Eszett gelöst” (basically, “the problem with the ß resolved”). Pretty freakin’ brilliant solution, I thought.
It’s also working pretty well as a vocabulary builder, though I’m still better at sight recognition than on-the-spot recall (e.g., I stand a much better chance of knowing what the word “Schilf” means when I see it than of remembering the German word for “reeds” if I need to use it in a sentence). My absolute favorite new vocabulary word so far, though, is the following:
Basically, it means “swearword.”
On a related note, it was interesting reading the translation of Tiffany and Miss Tick’s discussion of cursing versus cussing; the English original used both words, but the German simply used “Fluchten” (”cursing” in the vernacular, nonmagical sense) and “richteges Fluchten” (loosely, “proper cursing” in the “I hope your nose falls off” sense).
The things you learn, reading young adult novels. . . .
Anyway, I’m having lots of fun slogging through my translated book. My plan is to order a few more German copies of books I already own in English — probably another couple of Pratchetts, and a Gaiman or two, plus some cookbooks (esp. if I get around to buying a kitchen scale) — and then order one that I don’t already have in English, and try to read that one with just my trusty Beolingus as an aid.
That still probably won’t help with my speaking ability, but whatever. At least I’m keeping off the streets.
