How do you translate English into English ?

by Arnult Handley

Jun 7, 2012

I write stories for British 8 to 12 year-olds but how can I anyone translate them into American English ? A spell-check program will alter "centre" into the American "center", "axe" into "ax" and after reading American novels I can alter "Tarmac" into "black-top" and "dustbin" into "garbage bin". But I have a character who jokes "I've dustbin to the toilet" which is weak enough in Britain yet unintelligible in America. Nor do I know if an American 12 year-old would suck an "iced lolly". Would this make a class project ? Ostensibly it would have the theme of helping this Brit edit his book but underneath it would show the evolution of the English language with topics like - Why do the Brits say "fortnight" but not "senight"? Why do Americans use the perfect tense "gotten" and not "got"? When did the separation happen? It would also empower your students since they know more about contemporary colloquialisms than their old-fashioned teacher. So - would it make a teaching project?

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Arnult Handley On 6/09/12, Novel wrote: > > If you seriously want your book translated, pay a professional to > do it. Good luck Thanks for your advice, Novel. "Anyway" the first book in The Backshaw Class was edited by Cornerstones of London at a cost of over £300. However: any professional editor is of a different generation from the 8 to 12 year-old ...See More

Jun 10, 2012

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Arnult Handley To Sara - I am amazed at the erudite answers I am getting about translating The Backshaw Class stories. See also my reply to Novel - we adults are a generation away from current English usage but if you'd like 'to have a go' then Google my name, download "Anyway" and have a look before you commit yourself.

Jun 10, 2012

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Sara On 6/10/12, Arnult Handley wrote: > To Sara - I am amazed at the erudite answers I am getting about > translating The Backshaw Class stories. See also my reply to > Novel - we adults are a generation away from current English > usage but if you'd like 'to have a go' then Google my name, > download "Anyway" and have a look before you ...See MoreOn 6/10/12, Arnult Handley wrote: > To Sara - I am amazed at the erudite answers I am getting about > translating The Backshaw Class stories. See also my reply to > Novel - we adults are a generation away from current English > usage but if you'd like 'to have a go' then Google my name, > download "Anyway" and have a look before you commit yourself.

Arnult, I could download it to my Kindle and might - but I took a quick look via Amazon's 'look inside' feature and read three pages.

First, I really like the book! Your writing reminds me of James Howe - he wrote among others a book called The Misfits. You have a similar comic style of writing - almost every sentence is funny - that's not easy to achieve.

But yes, it would need translating to make it work for an American audience. What are the cow pies the Principal eats for breakfast? Cow pies here means cow poop or cow dung - that can't be what the Principal is eating. And I couldn't find it on google - or - is this Principal eating cow poop?? Most urban American children wouldn't know cow pies - I grew up in the countryside.

We could 'get round' that through e-mail discussion but the bigger problem might be the premise. Many American schoolchildren are already taking a required second language - Spanish - and no school here would introduce French as a required second language. But as your book is tongue-in-cheek, I 'rather think' we could pull it off... actually. (I've noticed that British English puts 'actually' at the end of sentences but here we put that modifier only at or near to the the beginning of sentences - never at the end)

That the required language is French seems essential to the book. We could make that work. 'Classroom N' won't work - that's not our nomenclauture here. We usually go by "Miss Collis' class' - classrooms here are most often referred to by the teacher's name actually. We could say 'Room 23' or 7A. You say 'form' but we say 'grade' - what grade are these children in Classroom N?

How long do we have for this? My school year ends in a week and then I'm on 'holiday' for summer - though I teach summer school too.

I'd be interested in having a go at this. I'd like to give it a try and for the fun and challenge of it - clearly I enjoy language and the nuanced differences between American English and the other Englishes has long fascinated me.

I would like 'proper' acknowledgment in the American version as translator. Do you have a personal website? How do I get in touch with you off teachers.net?

Jun 10, 2012

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Arnult Handley On 6/08/12, Teri wrote: > > First, you're assuming my intensive reading students hate to read. Most > of them don't. They just don't like and/or don't have the skills to > read the higher-level nonfiction articles found on the state tests. > Reading stories, no problem. > > Second, you're assuming they have any knowledge of cur...See More

Jun 11, 2012

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Arnult Handley Sara - Cow pie comes from a British comic-book character Desperate Dan who is so tough that he shaves with a blowtorch and eats pie made from the complete cow (it must be true because you can see the horns sticking out) References like this shows what a complex task you are thinking about. Anyway my address is freelance.[email removed]

Jun 11, 2012

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