Translation: Marie Antoinette Part 5

Sorry for the delay with this but it's finally online.

The exact translation in this video is probably a bit sloppy. I'm really out of practice with German which feels weird. It's almost like my old Elisabeth days when I had to stop and look things up every five minutes. Okay, in my really old Elisabeth days I had to look things up every five seconds but I digress. I was also rushing with this part to attempt to get it online and finished it at three a.m.. It's been three months since I uploaded the last part and, although I have good excuse, I feel really bad about that.

Claudia, a friend of mine from Austria helped me with a line that was causing me real trouble so thank you to her <3

Also, I still can't get accents to render properly on my hard subbing so some words are missing accents. Of course, this doesn't really affect English but this musical does like to chuck in the odd bit of French (translations below).

Anyway, talking about the video:

Axel has this lovely line where he says 'Wir sind freier als die meisten Menschen.' (We're freer than many people). It's a lovely concept. Although they're unhappy he knows that, in comparison, they're lucky and shouldn't complain. Annoyingly, free isn't commonly seen in a comparative fashion, and I'm unsure if technically it can be as you're either free or not. Apparently, there is a word "freer" so that's the one I used.

Maskenspiel is translated as masque not masquerade. A masque is a kind of big entertainment play dance song thing put on by players (within courts). Traditionally, masks would be worn by the players so this is a big metaphorical thing beyond just saying "we wear masks". A masquerade, is a ball at which people wore masks so slight difference :-)

Translations:

Mainly French, again, with a bit of Latin. My Latin is very rusty as I learned it many years ago so may not be accurate. Axel also 'translates it' in the musical. In fact, my French is getting rusty too but that's a complete other story!

Trés jolie, ne c'est pas? - Very pretty, isn't it?

Oui - Yes

Bon soir, Monsieur Orléans! - Good Evening Mr. Orléans!

Palais Royal - Royal Palace

Non! - No

Bien sur. - For sure.

Bien oui - Well yes

S'il vous plaît! - If you please (also means just "please")

Pour le plaisir - For pleasure. (This is kinda creepy in context!)

Dolore Fortiter - Sorrow bravely (Latin)

Quelle que soit - Whatever

Excuse-moi, chéri - Excuse me, dear.

Attempting to get back into translation

Well, it's been three months since the last part of Marie Antoinette went online and I moaned about feeling out of practice then. I've not even been flexing my German let alone working out how to put German words, thoughts, concepts, implications, into coherent English. Yuk!

I feel bad about not having kept up with my translating, however, and spent the last couple of days getting up to speed with Marie Antoinette. I've all but finished the next part and, all things equal, hope to upload it tonight. I'm sitting here fighting with the hardsubbing programs... they're winning, as always.

I'm also carrying on with Tanz der Vampire and want to get the English libretto for that done before I go away for Christmas and loose internet at the end of this week. Yes, I'm being optimistic but, in fairness, I did manage to create the revised English libretto of Elisabeth in a day. 

Other than that, it's been Christmas chaos all around. Places have lost orders, sent wrong things, not taken my money or sent the order that I asked to have next day delivery on (and paid to have next day delivery on... if they take my money) Urk, urk, urk.

It's not made any easier by the fact that we're going down south to spend Christmas in a rented cottage. It's a good thing, after all, carpet and a shower will be bliss, but it also means that we're leaving the house later this week. It adds a little bit of stress but I am looking forward to it.

Anywho, no photos today so we'll just have to make do with this:

Christmas Song of the Day

Silent Night sung by some of the cast of London's Les Mis

My singing teacher is using this song to get me to work on vowels so trust me, it's not one of my favourites right now. She was especially amused when I had to ask her for a copy of the words in English as I only knew the German version. Anyway, current developments aside, this is one of my favourite Christmas songs, and my mother's complete favourite. Add to that the multi-language idea and I'm sold.

Youtube news!

About four years ago I first started to subtitle Elisabeth. It was about a week before my birthday and, having discovered the magic of this musical I decided I wanted to share it with my friends who were coming round to celebrate my birthday (although, of course, it wasn't finished in time). Thus I decided to use a dictionary to translate my favourite musical. 

As you may well know, I had never intended to upload 'Elisabeth' onto youtube but in early 2010 my computer got a virus and, so that I didn't loose my work completely with the death of the computer, I uploaded them onto youtube. The response was instant and more positive than I could have believed. I decided to continue to upload the videos, as I made them.

Suddenly the project of a fourteen year old became something bigger and had more influence on my life than I could ever have imagined.

In the end, my friends never watched 'Elisabeth' with me, but people from all around the globe have shared it with me. I have had some amazing conversations with people because of Elisabeth, met some amazing people and, most importantly, I met three of my closest friends (Helena, Aleks, and Natascha) as a direct result of the show. 

Not only this, but I realised something... languages weren't that inaccessible to me. Sure, I struggled with French like mad but German, well I was learning that by accident. Because of the translating I became more confident and continued my French studies, picked up Japanese, and will be studying German and Hungarian at university next year.

But why am I writing this now?

Today, almost exactly four years after I subtitled my first video, my youtube channel hit 1000 subscribers.

So this is a thank you blog, really. If you are reading this then it's probably because you've been looking at my subtitles in some form, at some point over the years. Your messages, your views, everything, has encouraged me in so many ways. Yes, every creative member of 'Elisabeth', 'Rebecca', and 'Marie Antoinette' has had an influence too but it's been you, the people who have supported me, who have changed my life and for that I thank you.

Nursing an old friend back to health!

This is a blog of good news. Isn't it nice to have a bit of good news once in a while? Yep, I think so too.

Anyway, casual rambling over, lets have some targeted rambling ;-)

So, drum roll please...

I have mended the 'cello!

You might remember that she had a bit of an accident involving my father shoving her behind a wardrobe. It wouldn't do anyone any good to be treated in that way and she ended up quite injured but, thank the gods, not as badly hurt as she could have been. All the same it has taken me quite a lot of work to get her playable again, and she could still do with a new bridge at some point. I'm not complaining though because I didn't think I'd be able to do it. I'm also lucky there wasn't any internal damage because not only would that have been beyond my skills to repair it would also have been in the realms of the expensive.

I made sure she wasn't going to slip (and damage herself again) when
posing for this photo by jamming her spike into the floorboards hehe

I've also, naturally, had a little play with her today. It's weird because I haven't been able to play for over six months now - it's hard to be a nomad while carrying such a big bundle! I want to go back to playing the same as I was before my little break but physically can't do it. I seriously can't remember feeling such a burning feeling in my left fingers and right arm, and certainly not from playing for such a short period. On the plus side, I don't seem to have lost all the technique which was something that concerned me a little bit. I can't wait to get back to playing properly!

The other accomplishment of the day was the uploading of part three of Marie Antoinette, my current subtitling project. Technical problems galore but it's finally online. I won't bore you with ranting about that here but you can read about it on my subtitling livejournal account if you want. I genuinely feel that I've been productive today.

Now I'm going to go and relax with a nice cup of tea!