Monday, January 15, 2018

Songs in translation again

The Russian Dorogoi dlinnoyu is the original, and Those Were the Days the translation. Since I don't speak Russian, I miss the poetry, but for a change, I like the sound of the translation better. The Russian sounds like stuffing a quart of frogs into a pint jar.

The translation into French (words here) of the English works pretty well, and seems faithful to the mood. I suppose French is a little more supple tool to translate into.

I'd not realized that Aguas de Março was the end of the warm season in Brazil, so Waters of March means something much different in the USA. Winter's coming vs winter's over. He modified the English lyrics to accommodate that...

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

You can get away with a lot more speaking of the lyrics expressively in French.