Sonntag, 15. Mai 2011

"Der Kleine Prinz": A First Stab at Translation

Here are the first two (kleine) paragraphs of The Little Prince, in German, with my translations below. I'm embarrassed to say how long this took me; I had to look up nearly every word! Here's hoping this gets easier.


Deutsch:


Als ich sechs Jahre alt war, sah ich einmal in einem Buch über den Urwald, das ,,Erlebte Geschichten“ heiß, ein prächtiges Bild. Es stellte eine Roesenschlange dar, wie sie ein Wildtier verschlang.


In dem Buche hieß es: ,,Die Boas verschlingen ihre Buete als Ganzes, ohne sie zu zerbeißen. Daraufhin können sie sich nicht mehr rühren und schlafen sechs Monate, um zu verdauen.“


English:


When I was six years old, I once saw in a book about the primeval forest, called the “Experienced History,” a splendid picture. It showed a snake swallowing up a wild animal.


The book called it, “The Boa swallowing its prey whole without chewing it. After that it cannot move anymore and sleeps six months digesting it.”

1 Kommentar:

  1. I hope you didn't cheat taking the french original text for help :-) (just kidding) -- I think your translation is nearly perfect. Right now, I wonder whether there really is a difference between "jungle" and "primeval forest"… but maybe it's, like in German, just the notion of 'old' that comes in in the latter, "Ur-wald". In the last sentences you could translate the "um zu" by saying "…and sleeps six months to digest it."

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