Every angel means terror--and yet (woe's me) / I sing unto you, you all-but-fatal birds of the soul, / knowing all about you.
Jeder Engel ist schrecklich. Und dennoch, weh mir, / ansing ich euch, fast tödliche Vögel der Seele, / wissend um euch.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, "Duino Elegies" No. 2
I just watched the first 10min of Hamilton in German (my first language) and I think a part of my soul died. Most of it is technically correct but the word choice is as cringe-worthy as it gets and there is none of the nuance and eloquence of the original left. It just sounds so forced. (Like parents trying to sound young and using slang to torture their kids sorta?)
The idea that people who don't speak English might only see this version and think of that monstrosity when I tell them Hamilton is my favorite musical kills me. I genuinely don't have the words to describe how bad it is, I've been laughing out of sheer horror for the last five minutes. Why.
I think I'm a language elitist now and people who don't speak English should simply not get to watch this musical actually (for their own good.)
First in german, now in English, because nothing is better than the original...
Of course "Erziraphael" had been a shock to me first, after looking the show in english, but after a while my head simply ignored it and kept reading Aziraphale...
And I truly must say, I love the translation by Andreas Brandhorst, mostly because of the "Verdammter Mist-Bibel"-episode on p. 59, 60. And footnote No. 26... Every time a read this in my first language it is totally killing me and I can't stop laughing 🤣🤣🤣🤣...so loud, Terry must hear me! Honestly, I am bursting!😂🤣 Don't know, which button gets pressed there...
And for making the "german" Shadwell sound like Winfried Kretschmann..."Wie fiele Bruschtwarzen habescht du?"🤣🤣🤣 This mixture between schwäbisch und mittelhochdeutsch is brilliant, because Shadwells accents is already so weird in the original book...luckily we also got many weird accents...
But of course, nothing is better than the original, because just "ineffable" is much more hitting me these days than "unerfindlich", just because I will always hear Michael Sheens voice saying this word...😌 No translation can change that.
Bevor ich jetzt aus deinem Leben verschwinde, sollst du eines wissen: Nie war es meine Absicht, dir weh zu tun! Endlich habe ich einen Grund gefunden, mein Leben auf den Kopf zu stellen und nochmal von vorn zu beginnen.
Der Grund dafür bist du!
Zutiefst bereue ich, all die Schmerzen, die ich dir zugefügt habe. Doch damit muss ich jetzt allein fertig werden. Wie gern würde ich alles ungeschehen machen und derjenige sein, der deine Tränen trocknet.
Doch um unserer Liebe willen will ich dir nochmal sagen: Ich werde aus meinen Fehlern lernen und bei Null beginnen. Dann wirst du eine bisher völlig unbekannte Seite an mir erkennen.
i just tried to put my german translation of good omens on the windowsill but it fell off the edge and directly into my bin. is the universe trying to tell me something
I can't get over the fact, that in the German synchronization they didn't translate the original "Come to coffin" from 1x07 and just changed it into "Come upstairs". Shame on you, German translators. Shame on you.
Also I just glimpsed into that one German episode, because I was curious - I don't want to think about all the other things that were lost in the translation..