Vladimir sighting!

[cleolinda]

Hee! The Squishy is out of town at the moment with little-to-no internet available, and yet he manages to turn up anyway. wearejustducky pointed me in the direction of Neil Gaiman's latest journal entry:

Do they manage to translate the names of the Endless into other languages alliteratively? For French the obvious renderings are Destin, Mort, Rêve, Destruction, Désir, Désespoir, Délire, which is close but not quite there.

Sometimes yes, mostly no. Vladimir, my Croatian translator, was incredibly pleased that he'd succeeded in making them all start with "S", for example.

Hee! I remember him struggling with it, actually. He ended up translating "Destruction" as "Smak," which is incredibly fun to run around the house shouting in a Transformers voice: "DEEESTRUCTIOOOOOOOON! SMAK!"

Comments

[kotszok.livejournal.com]

LMFAO! I'm just sitting here, after dinner, and reading what you wrote about the tranformers... and I just burst out laughing. LOL It was so funny, just this squawking laughter... hee hee.

Send my congratulations to Vladimir! It takes talent to do that... lol SMAK!

[alpheratz.livejournal.com]

Hee, I read that yesterday and smiled. And also started thinking that if Croatian was anything like Russian, which seemed to me to be a reasonable assumption, I'd be able to make similar translations. I got Death, Dream, Despair and Delirium. *g*

[cellardoor28.livejournal.com]

i saw that (*pauses to do neil gaiman fangirl squeeee*)

you should ask vladimir what decepticon and autobot are in croatian :p

[corpset.livejournal.com]

Hehe, "smak" means "taste" in Swedish :)

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

Also in Norwegian... ;)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

So what are the names of the rest of the Croatian Endless?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Funny you should ask. :)

http://vladimirsever.blogspot.com/2004_06_13_vladimirsever_archive.html#108715576592584799

[misshallelujah.livejournal.com]

GAHAHAH!

In a sort-of-off tangent, the acronym for one of the major transportation companies in Singapore is "SMRT".

I get a fit of giggles everytime I see a train, bus or a taxi emblazoned with the huge words "SMRT" on them. Or on their posters accompanied by little slogans such as "Always within your reach" or even better, "We value life. Don't you?"

[pomegranite.livejournal.com]

I dreamt last night that I came across a random LJer that had steaming video of Days shows and I was reminding myself that I needed to tell you so that you could watch them anytime you wanted. Alas, it was just a dream.

[http://users.livejournal.com/___destijl/]

Your icon is quite hypnotizing. I've been watching it stir and stir and stir for some time now.

[pomegranite.livejournal.com]

I stole it from a girl in some russian community, sssshhh don't tell!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Awww. I need to get back to recapping the show. Now that I've sort of had a vacation (a very poor sort of vacation, but oh well), I'll see if I can't get back to work.

[edda.livejournal.com]

I sense a *SMAK ADDICT* icon in someone's future...

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

HEE!

Have you seen Destruction in Endless Nights, though? Oh yeah. That's all I'm saying.

[torificus.livejournal.com]

*snort*

Now, I shall be amused all day!

[kittygopounce.livejournal.com]

Waa! That's so cute/funny, rofl. Smak! Go Vladimir!

Re: OMG!!!

[delirium9.livejournal.com]

Your boyfried is Neil Gaiman's Croatian translator!?!?!?!?!?

What a dream job!! Oohhh!!

I'm a translator, but I only work with Spanish and English, far too common languages. I guess my hero Neil already has plenty of translators for both languages :( *cries*

Anyway, that is sooooo cool :) Just wanted to say that.

Bye,
~*Tess*~

Re: OMG!!!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

He is! He is so in love with Neil Gaiman, by the way. When Neil came through on his book tour, Vladimir was his interpreter for about three days, and I haven't heard the end of it since. :)

Actually, I was a Spanish/English translator for a while--I was a Spanish major/French minor in college, and translated Cuban short stories into English as part of my undergrad work. I did some really dry translation work after I graduated, and decided I'd rather get into a creative writing program for my master's. What do you translate?