Promised myself to become good enough in English to read Tolkin in its original language. Today my teacher gave me this
Posted Jul 14, 2021, 10:42 AM UTC
1.4K51
That’s an amazing achievement if you can manage it because plenty of people native to English have trouble reading it. 😂
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And I an one of them. About 3/4 though two towers
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It's amazing to achieve goals in life! Im happy for you and I hope ypu keep getting successful in everything
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That must be an amazing, caring, and thoughtful teacher. Enjoy the trip!
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Yes she is amazing. She gave each student in my class a book or a graphic novel for our summer holidays
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Tolkien was a wordsmith of the highest order (in English). I have read the Trilogy at least thirty times (since 1968...I am old), and with every reading there is more. Something that I never noticed. A nuance or a phrase that resonates with me for the first time. Translations can vary greatly due to the translator's world view. Enjoy the ride; and savor the challenge.
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This was my first English book and the second was Lotr, now reading! (because the Dutch translation sucks, the title alone: In de Ban van de Ring (Addicted to the Ring) Succes with reading the Hobbit!
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Addicted to the Ring
If Gollum wrote an autobiography 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Dutch translation is fine, I don't see any issues with it.
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Ok maar niks is beter dan dan de originele tekst van Tolkien zelf
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Are you speaking Dutch, because I managed to guess almost all the words just from how similar they are to English
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English and Dutch are both West Germanic languages.
During the Middle-Ages, the West Germanic languages were probably still mutually intelligible. The Netherlands and parts of Germany were Christianised by Anglo-Saxon missionaries, because they could communicate with the locals.
Christianity was introduced in the Netherlands by Anglo-Saxon saints.
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Ja dat is inderdaad Nederlands
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congratz dude! i hope you enjoy reading it in english :)
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Oh god I’m imagining you trying to read the silmarillion in English 🙈🙈😂😂 good luck and also congratulations 👍👍
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Nice one, good luck. When I was a kid i taught myself to read using the subtitles on the lord of the rings films, and after that the first book I read was the Hobbit.
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Congratulations. I'm a maybe English speaker and let me just say, you're still gonna be looking up words ;)
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I am. Just finished the first chapter and I must say the melody of the phrases is really plastic and almost like somebody is reading the words to you
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One of my favorite tolkien stories is that when he published the Lord of the Rings, his publisher tried to tell him it's "dwarfs" now "dwarves" because the Oxford dictionary said so and he replied, "I wrote the Oxford dictionary". So basically, strap on because you are in for a hell of a ride.
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I love that it seems like some kindly professor is telling you the story. Remember, that Tolkien wrote this book for his kids and they were the first to hear the story read to them at bedtime.
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I had to look up the word spinney recently
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Congrats!! I'm American but had to learn Spanish while living in Chile, learning another language is hard. English is such a crazy language, I imagine it was really hard to learn. So you should be proud of yourself!!
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What a great gift!
It shouldn't be too hard to pick up the flow of the English in "The Hobbit."
I'm very excited for you!
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Congratulations, friend! That’s genuinely incredible. Hope I can pursue my goals with this dedication someday too :”)
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Congrats! Props to you, really impressive!
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👌👌👌👌👌
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That was my second copy I got for a birthday after I'd read my dad"s paperback to pieces and he wouldn't let me read his super deluxe hard back.
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I figured out on my own that the runes are in English and can be directly translated.
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You can also use an ebook version on a kindle so you can use the included translator its way faster and learn new vocabulary at the same time, that's what I m doing
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TBH, Tolkien really sounds best in its original Klingon.
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Very cool & congrats on your accomplishment. Its always hard learning another language well enough to read its literature.
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My teacher said that you only begin to understand a language when you understand written humor. So far it seems too me as if Tolkin wrote with a twinkle in his eyes
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Well said. Yes he did.
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I first read the lord of the rings in german. I'm german by the way... But I liked it more in english! No, i loved it! The german translation from Margaret Carroux is way better than the new one from Wolfgang Krege
Same here. I actually think the German translation is very good (not the newest one). It translates some places or names but mostly not in a bad way. It's also written well. The original is obviously better but as far as translations go, I dig the German one.
It's quite the opposite from A Song of Ice and Fire where the German translation is an abomination where they translate in the most forced ways. Still cringe when I think about Jon Schnee and Königsmund.
Hahaha the same with A Song of Ice and Fire in Dutch. I hate how the names are translated. I get that Snow is technically not a name but it just so cringes.
I can't stop laughing over this. 🤣 Why is this so funny?
They translated King's Landing to King's Mouth? 😳
Also I was surprised that they translated the title of the first book A Game of Thrones to Die Herren von Winterfell - the Lords of Winterfell. Why?
Yeah they did.
Also Hot Pie became Heiße Pastete and Reek became Stinker. There's tons of hilarious translations.
In Russian King's Landing became King's Harbour. Decent enough.
Reek is Stinker too.
English is my first language but I'm learning German and man am I struggling with a gendered language! It's really fun and I'm struggling to not pronounce things with a French accent on the words, I learned a bit of French in school.
My native language is Dutch and I also struggle with gendered languages. Dutch has common and neuter genders. Common is masculine and feminine lumped together. I had German and French in school: French has masculine and feminine, snd German has all three genders. It seems you just need to learn them all over again for every language. The Moon is feminine in French, and the Sun masculine, but it is the reverse in German.
Dutch is somewhere between English and German in that it is slowly losing the distinction between masculine and feminine words (but neuter words are still clearly seperate).
It's weird too because I know English is a messed up language. All my German pronunciations have a French accent to it because I had to take French until grade 9. I'm 81 days straight in my German lessons according to Duolingo, I do at least one a day and try to do more when time allows. I think I'm doing okay, my best friend's German mum was able to understand me, so I consider that a win!
Yeah, me too. It was one of the first books I read all by myself after my dad read it to me