Create your own dictionary

In my experience, literary translators are - by default - in love with words, phrases and ingenius sentences. And the same way as "Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night" (as Woody Allen pointed it out) being bilingual (or at least being fluent in two languages) doubles your chances of stumbling upon memorable sentences or expressions that give you at least as much pleasure as a date on Saturday night, if not more.

For years I have been collecting little snippets from books - usually reading the original and the translation side by side - in simple spiral notebooks. Now that the stack of them starts to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa I decided to succumb to modernity and go digital. Leafing through a dozen notebooks to find one particular phrase started to look like a daunting challange.
So what you can do is open a simple Excel file, and start filling in the rows - in alphabetical order - with the hundreds of memorable quotes and their translations - and voiliá! - you have your own, personally edited dictionary with entries like "bro's before ho's", "check out my new squeeze" "handlebar mustache", "vertically challanged" - entries that are curiously missing from a "normal" dictionary. 

Some serious ass-kicking

I haven't even unpacked my bags (or uploaded my Borneo videos on Vimeo) when I got thrown in at the deep end. One of my editors asked if I could help out with a book - the originial translator could not keep the dead line. Since I have such a soft heart, I said yes, without even asking about the details. Big mistake. The book in question turned out to be a hard-core Tom Clancy "finish off all the terrorists, drug-dealers, bad-guys with all conceivable weapons on Earth" book. I am not a particularly aggressive person (except when in a sleep-deprived state, which means less than nine hours sleep, which means EVERY FRIGGIN' DAY!!) so this stuff does not come easy to me. The original translator (a guy) asked me to alert him every time a gun gets fired (he does not really trust a female translator to be able to cope with situations like these) but that would mean practically EVERY TWO MINUTES.
Anyway, I am off to kick some terrorists' asses.
If that does not generate traffic to this site, then I don't know what...

A break from words

This was the first vacation for years when I did not carry a laptop and a book to translate. I thought Borneo deserves my undivided attention - and I was right, of course. What's funny is that I did not even really got into reading any of the books that I carefully selected for this trip and carried with me. From a thinking/reading/analyising/criticizing empty shell I went into a sensory being. Waking up in the morning to the unmistakeable calls of gibbons. Following an orangutan with her baby for hours. Plucking leeches off my different body parts. Rendered speechless at the sight of 50-60 metre tall trees. Getting muddy, exhausted and achy after strenous walks in the forest. Falling asleep at the sounds of a dozen different frogs. Just being.

For R.

Psalms of Devotion by Miklós Radnóti

1
Honey, why do I even play with witching,
ornate words when I am more
sorrowful than a willow, prouder than a pine,
and fairer than Sunday morning.

When in the autumn, when the sunlight
glitters pale I worship you with simple
words and I love you
as only a willow can love the languid river.

Twilights bring colorful vestments so that
I can pray to you with sad, simple words
that are born inside of me
and there is nothing left after them.

I am more sorrowful than a weeping-willow,
and I love you with pretty words all the same,
although you are lovelier than a daisy
and simpler than simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_OtRN9juE

For Your Birthday - Születésnapodra

Dear Attila,
first of all, happy birthday to you! Maybe you know it already, but people all around the country recite your poems today, celebrating not just your birthday but the power of poetry. Although one has to wonder - does anyone even read poetry today? Seems like. Did you know that you are on Facebook (alongside with Radnóti, Petőfi, Arany...) and you have a solid fan-base? Doesn't that strike you as funny?

When I was a small child, I used to fall asleep listening to the words of your Lullaby, feeling vaguely special, since it was addressed to "little Balázs". ("The sky closes its blue eyes, the house closes its many eyes, the meadow sleeps under an edierdown - go to sleep now, little Balázs"). As a teenager I got goosebumps just reading the line "and I shiver realizing that I have lived without you" ("és beleborzongok, látván, hogy nélküled éltem"). When struggling with melancholy (a.k.a depression) your poem, Hopelessly (Reménytelenül) was speaking from my own heart ("My heart sits on the branch a nothingness, its small body shivers soundlessly, stars gather around it, and watching it gently. Time falls inside me like a stone, through space, silently, The mute, blue time floats by, sword-edge glints - my hair"). And You Know There is No Mercy: "They loved you by cheating you, you cheated so cannot love, so press the loaded gun, against your empty heart. Or throw away all principles, hoping true love will find you, since you, like a dog, would believe in whoever trusted you".

I never liked having poetry read to me. We used to have actors reciting poems on TV - they always did it with lots of emotion and sometimes exaggerated facial expressions. I feel that reading poetry is a private matter. The exercises that we had to do in school, the analysis - "What did the poet want to express with this? What did the poet think when he wrote this?" never made any sense to me. I have the feeling that the poets did not have any conscious intention with their poems ( I mean the really good poets, not those hired for political propaganda, or whatever). Poems are fragments of the truth, bubbling up from the unconsciossness, revealing some insight that conscious effort would never be able to express. The unexpected pairings of words or thoughts cannot be willed - they can flow through you and you might catch them, but never intentionally. At least, this is how I see it.
And I don't even dare to try to translate this right now - feels too perfect for that. 

Óh szív! Nyugodj!

Fegyverben réved fönn a téli ég,
kemény a menny és vándor a vidék,
halkul a hó, megáll az elmenő,
lehelete a lobbant keszkenő.

Hol is vagyok? Egy szalmaszál nagyon
helyezkedik a csontozott úton;
kis, száraz nemzet; izgágán szuszog,
zúzódik, zizzen, izzad és buzog.

De fönn a hegyen ágyat bont a köd,
mint egykor melléd: mellé leülök.
Bajos szél jaját csendben hallgatom,
csak hulló hajam repes vállamon.

Óh szív! nyugodj! Vad boróka hegyén
szerelem szólal, incseleg felém,
pirkadó madár, karcsú, koronás,
de áttetsző, mint minden látomás.  

Jack of All Trades

Based on the knowledge gained from my recent translation works I should be able to:
- assemble an indoor fussball table
- discuss the effects of Pilates training on young Brazilian futsal players
- perform a colonoscopy or a 4D foetal ultrasound
- perform knee surgery
- talk somebody into buying a small Swedish forwarder (which is a forestry machine - for those, who don't know)
- fix any problems with a waste-water reclaiming system (especially the ones caused by the ultrafilters)

In the Works

Right now I am working on the following - a book where the storyline features a dog that gets separated from his owner (I can get really emotional even just thinking about it - I guess that's what happens when you treat your own dog like one of the most important person in your life), a web-site for a medical center, and a description of an indoor fussball table.

I cannot complain that my work is dull or unvaried.

Nothing Can Snap You out of Your Translation-induced Flow Quite Like a Big Ol' Tarantula

Getting my first ever assignment interestingly coincided with my first trip to Ecuador. Timing can be that funny sometimes.

Spending most of our time looking for primary rainforests (for a photo-project) meant that we left civilization (and its Discontents) far behind. What we also left behind was a reliable source of electricity, so I had to work by candlelight and use the well-established translation method of the last few centuries: taking a piece of paper, a pen (or pencil) and rely on my own vocabulary. Which of course had its advantages (not wasting hours on the net trying to find a better synonym for like "depression" or whatever) and its drawbacks (when you have a brain-freeze, and cannot think of the Hungarian word for like "wispy" or "recoil").
As I was sitting on the floor of a small cabin, contemplating how to put it best in Hungarian that "Attraversiamo - It means, Let's cross over", (keljünk át? menjünk át? vágjunk át?) I suddenly heard a rustling noise. The plastic bag lying next to me started to move a little bit, and after some more rustling a hairy, black tarantula poked his (or her) head out. He then comfortably crossed the room - checking out some of our bags in its way - then left through the door.

Close Encounters of a Great Kind.

When Everything Falls in Place

Sometimes you get this feeling that the Universe conspires not against you but for you. Seemingly complicated things happen smoothly, the unlucky event turns out to be in your favor, chance encounters will provide you with the necessary information. Somehow everything clicks.

When I got into my mind that I was the one who had to translate Elizabeth Gilbert's book into Hungarian I had no idea how to actually do it (besides the obvious - to sit down and translate it). The internet seemed a good place to start my search, and within minutes I found a literary translation course in Budapest that was about to start. I e-mailed them, got a positive answer and I booked my ticket to Hungary - leaving California and my old life behind. I literally drove from the airport to the first class. Since there were only a few students there, we were told that the course might not even start. The last minute, though, another hopeful candidate arrived, and we had our first lecture.

While I maintain that literary translation cannot really be taught, there were a lot of things that we learned - mostly by trial and error. Useful pointers were given - alongside with tons of homework: translating everything from some of Hemingway's short stories to some of the adventures of Adrian Mole.

My next step was finding out who had the rights for Gilbert's book in Hungary. I contacted them, told them I was a beginner translator and I had a few chapters translated from Eat, Pray, Love. Could I send them in? Sure! Send it in! And just a few days later I got an answer: If I want, I can translate the book.

So, suddenly, I was there with a whole book to translate. Which is what I wanted, right?
Of course, I freaked out.

http://elizabethgilbert.com/

Books I have translated - a list

Eat, Pray, Love - My first ever

The book that has literally changed my life - and has made me become a literary translator.

I know that there are tons of women around the world who claim to feel the same way - and I refer to the first part of the sentence - and it might be even true. There may be women who packed up their belongings, went to an Ashram to meditate for a while, or moved to Italy and have gained 30 pounds since. Or have found love in Bali or any other exotic location. I think it was such a huge success because so many of us could identified with Elizabeth (maybe our marriages were on the rocks, maybe the comfort of our lives started to feel suffocating and our job meaningless, we were trying to fight off depression, trying to find underlying casues of depression, getting more depressed in the process, doing yoga but still not finding inner peace not to mention enlightenment ) and felt that "hey, I could take a trip somewhere, too!"
I did. I went to Peru to do some volunteerwork in the rainforest. I remember getting out of the plane in Puerto Maldonado and feeling all choked up - I had this very strong feeling that I was where I had to be. I was looking forward to all the great adventures and all the interesting people I was just about to meet.

I was totally miserable. The trip to the biological station deep in the forest was a nightmare. Despite being in the tropics it was freaking cold and the rain was pouring the whole seven hours and all I wanted was to go home (but first, to get dry). When we got to our camp I had to get over my first shock - the doors of the little cabins were non-existent. There were nothing on the windows. I mean, come on, we are in the forest, full of dangerous animals - that can obviously come and visit us whenever they want.

I wasn't really sociable those first few days. Hated being woken up at 4 in the morning to walk along a muddy trail to count all the animals we encounter. (How can you count a group of squirrel monkeys that swing through the branches 20 metres above your head?).

Eventually the forest (and the people) wore down my resistance and I found myself feeling more alive than ever before. The rainforest can have this effect on you. Your senses - those that you harldy ever use in your daily life in the city - finally come alive. Not just your sense of smell, for example (I was able to smell a group of pecary in no time - which is not a big wasistdas considering they are quite stinky) but your sense of balance and your sense of wonder also. Yes, it might be tainted with fear - am I gonna be eaten by a big old jaguar? - but even that thought can help you finding your place in the big picture (yes, you can be someone else's dinner). You are part of the web of life.

I did not think for a moment that counting forest animals or jotting down notes about macaw behaviour at the clay-lick will save the world. I guess it would be naiv for any volunteers to have such high aspirations. But at least part of our money provided extra income to some local people, who in turn might not had to resort to illegal logging, for example. (I hope that was the case, at least).
On the other hand, spending hours in a hide at the riverbank writing down what the macaws do at the clay-lick every 3 minutes (7.00 - one macaw scratched his head. 7.03 two macaws scratched each other heads...) gives you plenty of time to wonder which direction your life is going (negative direction) and what you should do about it (something). And that's when the thought (if I can call it a thought - more like a gut-feeling) came - I wanna translate Eat, Pray, Love.