Tvindy

Manifold Super Funny

Danger!

I came across this curious paper taped to a wall in the historic part of Lisbon. I've translated it below, leaving out the name and passport number:

Do You Know This Man?

If you don't, consider yourself lucky. If you do, then it's best to exercise caution. His name is *****, he's German, and his passport number is *****. He mostly hangs out in the areas of Príncipe Real, Bairro Alto, Castelo and Graça, and he's one of the biggest conmen to ever come to Portugal.

Never put money into his hand! You'll never see it again. . .

He came from Germany to escape from the debts he had there. He says he's a student, a teacher, a translator, a painter, but he's a salesman (The problem is that he sells contraband). . . Be very careful!

He never liked to work and has always depended on women to support him. He has betrayed friends and conned customers at a business that he created and then abandoned.

He specializes in biting the hand that feeds him. Furthermore he's homophobic and incapable of respecting anyone's privacy!

Be alert! Never trust him!

Smoking Kills!

Cigarette warnings are much more emphatic in Portugal than here in the US. This translates as "Smoking kills".

And here is one that says "Smoking may cause a slow and painful death":

The duty free shop in the airport carries cigarette packs with translated warnings:

The Little Red Romanian Hen

For our final project in Romanian class, we made a sort of animated version of The Little Red Hen. Unfortunately, we had severe audio problems, but, other than the fact that most of the Romanian is inaudible, it's still a cool movie. You can view it by clicking on the above image.

My Linguistic Profile

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak? (from sucks)

Agonizing Translation Work

I suppose everyone is wondering what's going on with the book project. Things have a way of becoming hectic and staying that way for several days. I really haven't had a chance to get to it and probably won't this week. But next week things are looking up, since nearly all of my schoolwork this term should be completed by then. In other words, it looks like mid-March will be when I finally get it done and submitted. Once again, I apologize for all the delays.

For now though, I want to share with you a small piece of an enormous tranlation of a hellish legal document that I hope to have finished by tomorrow. It really goes to show that lawyers can obfuscate in any language. Here is one of my favorite sentences in the original Portuguese:

Desde que começou a participar do processo de licenciamento ambiental da UHE Barra Grande, no exercício de seu dever constitucional e de sua prerrogativa federativa, a FEPAM apontou inúmeras falhas e lacunas no Termo de Referência que iria subsidiar a elaboração do EIA/Rima (documentos R e S) e, posteriormente, no próprio estudo ambiental, tendo por diversas vezes solicitado ao empreendedor e ao IBAMA que realizassem estudos complementares ou refizessem alguns já realizados, por entender que as informações nele constantes eram inconsistentes, incompletas ou inverídicas.

And here is my translation. (Notice how I managed to preserve the original obfuscation.):

Ever since FEPAM began participating in the Barra Grande Hydroelectric Plant environmental licensing project, in the exercise of its constitutional duty and of its federative prerrogative, it has pointed out countless failures and oversights in the Termo de Referência that would subsidize the putting together of the Environmental Impact Study/Environmental Impact Report (documents R and S) and, later, in the environmental study itself, having several times requested the project undertaker and IBAMA to perform complementary studies or to redo some that had already been performed, understanding that the information contained within them was inconsistent, incomplete or untrue.

Portuguese Test

I gave a Portuguese test to my beginning students today, and I thought it was amusing enough to reproduce here. The students had to fill in the blanks of a dialogue with an appropriate word. You can view the English translation by clicking on the link below.

João: Bom dia, Maria.

Maria: Oi, João. Como é que tá?

João: Ótimo. Como se __________ "telefone" em inglés?

Maria: É "telephone number".

João: Qual __________ seu telefone?

Maria: O __________ telefone é 555-0666.

João: cinco cinco __________ __________ meia meia meia?

Maria: Sim. Odeio esse número.

João: Mas por que não gosta __________ número?

Maria: É muito satânico.

João: Ah, sim. 666 __________ um número diabólico.

Maria: Como se __________ o diabo?

João: O nome __________ é Lúcifer.

Maria: Não é Satanás?

João: Satanás é __________ sobrenome dele.

Maria: Senhor Lúcifer Satanás. Então o que é Beelzebub?

João: É o apelido dele.

Maria: Que nomes estranhos! Não __________ nomes brasileiros.

João: O diabo é da Itália.

Maria: E qual é o país de Deus?

João: Deus é brasileiro.

Maria: Você é muito inteligente.

João: Nós dois __________ inteligentes. A sua área de __________ é física, não?

Maria: Sim, _________ inteligente como você

João: E diabólica.

Maria: Tchau.

João: Tchau.

Romanian Presentation

As most of you probably already know by now, I study Romanian at the U of O through the Yamada Language Center. The curriculum requires that every class put on some sort of presentation for the other classes at the end of each term. Last quarter, I put together my own presentation. (There were only two students in the class.) It was the first time I used my iPod photo to do an in-class presentation. I made up some slides and then showed them on the TV. My teacher liked what I did and said I should make a permanent written version of it, so that's what I've done here. Please bear in mind when reading it that I know my scholarship is kind of sloppy (no footnotes, gross generalizations, a few sprinkles of BS), but most of the other classes just put on skits. The other student in my class taught the audience to do the Hokey Pokey in Romanian.

More Fun With Romanian

Whenever I'm too tired to write anything, I just put up a photo. This is something my Romanian teacher drew the other day when she was feeling artistic.

Llama Song Translation 2.0

Bakerina's comment on my previous post made me aware of some defects in my llama song translation. I believe I've ironed out all the major flaws. Click the link below to view the definitive translation.