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A Padawan learns Dutch/Ind./Fr. - TAC ’14

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Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 521 of 568
14 February 2014 at 7:25pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
The problem really is that in English "to earn" can be used as a synonym for "to deserve" in the
case of meriting a reward: "Take the medal, you've earned it!" is synonymous with "you deserve it!".

In Dutch, you use verdienen for everything, and in the case of a reward, it always means to deserve, and a
translation with "earn" in English is very strange, because that only works when talking about the salary you receive.

Yeah, I see that. It's a subtle difference but really confused me. :-)

Reminds me of when I was trying to translate "Dromen Zijn Bedrog" and completely misunderstood the chorus as
"Come out [of my] dreams"...
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Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 522 of 568
16 February 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged 
Dutch

Okay, so last night I finished De ontdekking van de hemel. Oh my gosh. It was
crazy, you guys.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Here is the book by the numbers:

Pages: 927
Chapters: 65
Visits to Cuba: 1
Deaths by meteorite: 1
Deaths by freak falling tree: 1
Deaths by hobo attack: 1
Total number of implausible deaths: 3
Possible fathers for one child: 2
Acts of euthanasia: 1
Times I thought "What the heck just happened": ~a lot
Times Quinten creeps out everyone in the story because of his magic Chosen One powers:
~a lot
How blue Quinten's eyes are, on a scale from 1 to 10: 11
Times Onno should have realized Max was not a good friend: 2 (once when Max screwed his
girlfriend, once when Max screwed his mother-in-law)

Quick notes: the story is framed, where the main frame is two angels discussing a
mission that's just finished on Earth. The idea is that the tablets containing the Ten
Commandments have been lost and need to be returned to Israel.

Since angels can't affect things on Earth directly, they need to make sure a human is
born who will have the uncontrollable urge to find the tablets and return them. It is
not clear why this is the most efficient way to return the tablets, but, y'know,
whatevs, that's the belief you suspend when you enter the Harry Mulisch Universe (TM).
Everything within the frame of the angels' story is about how the Chosen One is born
and comes to fulfill his mission, not unlike Star Wars.

There is pretty much no way for me to briefly convey how great this book was. You'll
just have to read it and see for yourself. Common complaints online are that the book
was too long, but I totally disagree - I almost wish it had gone on longer. I say
almost because I have been reading this book since October and that is kind of nuts.

I did notice my reading speed increase slightly between the beginning and end of the
book. Had I chosen to look up more words along the way, it would have probably sped up
even more. As it is, though, I'm satisfied. Also, the level of diction was fairly high
in this book, so pretty much anything afterward will feel like a cakewalk.

Anyway, my main thought at the moment is: De ontdekking van de hemel is the
bomb. Read it. Live it. Love it.
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fabriciocarraro
Hexaglot
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Senior Member
Brazil
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989 posts - 1454 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French
Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese

 
 Message 523 of 568
17 February 2014 at 4:01am | IP Logged 
Wow, you can read such long books in Dutch already, I'm truly amazed!!

If you really like that theme, there's a quite famous (and recent) Brazilian book that covers this theme about angels and demons. The main plot is about a renegade angel living on Earth through the ages, so we "see" him in Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc etc and nowadays. It's quite interesting and fun! I love this fantasy stuff hahaha and the best part: the book has been translated into Dutch!

Here are 2 reviews about it:
http://www.historien.nl/de-engelen-van-de-apocalyps/

http://www.fantasyboeken.org/2012/01/recensie-eduardo-spohr- %E2%80%93-de-engelen-van-de-apocalyps/
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Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 524 of 568
19 February 2014 at 12:02am | IP Logged 
fabriciocarraro wrote:
Wow, you can read such long books in Dutch already, I'm truly amazed!!

If you really like that theme, there's a quite famous (and recent) Brazilian book that covers this theme about angels
and demons. The main plot is about a renegade angel living on Earth through the ages, so we "see" him in
Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc etc and nowadays. It's quite interesting and fun! I love this fantasy stuff hahaha and the
best part: the book has been translated into Dutch!

Thanks for the kind words, fabriciocarraro! And wow, that is a great book recommendation, you know me well.
These Biblical epics are right up my alley. :-D
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Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 525 of 568
20 February 2014 at 8:59pm | IP Logged 
Dutch

Ik ben begonnen met De asielzoeker, een roman van Arnon Grunberg die in 2003 verscheen. Ik zit nu al op
pagina 36. 'De asielzoeker' betekent 'the asylum seeker' in het Engels, als je dat niet wist, net als ik.

Het boek begint met een man die gebruiksaanwijzingen vertaalt. Hij heet Christian Beck. Zijn vrouw - die zichzelf
'de vogel' noemt - is ernstig ziek, maar we weten niet waardoor het komt.

So far so good. Een ziekte is een ding dat je overleeft. Ik begon te hopen dat dit boek redelijk kalm zou zijn.
Misschien zou de 'asielzoeker' van de titel een metafoor blijken te zijn?

Maar opeens verschijnt een vreemdeling in het verhaal: de vogel wilt met een alsnog onbekende asielzoeker
trouwen. Christian Beck en de vogel wonen al jaren samen maar zijn nooit getrouwd. Nu is het echt
ongemakkelijk, want Beck wilt niet 'nee' zeggen, maar het doet echt pijn hoor - om zijn vrouw met een andere
man te zien trouwen. Ik dacht van, Ah ja. Daar is het. The freaky twist dat in elke Grunberg roman zit.

Dit is trouwens de tweede keer dat een allochtoon de enge 'ander' is. Als je Tirza hebt gelezen, zou je je
'Mohammed Atta' goed herinneren. Die was het vriendje van Tirza die de vader haatte, alleen maar omdat hij een
beetje op de terrorist van 11 september leek.

Ik vraag me af wat Grunbergs obsessie hier is. Ik geloof echt niet dat hij racistisch is - misschien juist helemaal
niet, misschien is het een aanklacht tegen onze maatschappij en ons eigen racisme.
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Vos
Diglot
Senior Member
Australia
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Dutch, Polish

 
 Message 526 of 568
21 February 2014 at 1:33pm | IP Logged 
Gefeliciteerd met het afmaken van een echte Nederlandse klassieker Hekje!! Heel erg indrukwekkend.
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tarvos
Super Polyglot
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China
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Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 527 of 568
21 February 2014 at 1:39pm | IP Logged 
Klopt. Ik heb hem dan weer niet gelezen, maar De Ontdekking van de Hemel is een echte
klassieker inderdaad, en komt ook van een van de grootste Nederlandse schrijvers.
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Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 528 of 568
23 February 2014 at 6:23pm | IP Logged 
Hartelijk bedankt allemaal! Ik vond het een echt meeslepend verhaal. :-D

As a break from these longer books, I just quickly read this graphic novel, Van
Istanbul naar Bagdad
. Another Grunberg, with illustrations by Hanco Kolk.

The book was good. Hanco Kolk's drawings are fun and modern. I also liked how informal
the dialogue was - it's definitely more useful, in the real-world sense, for my learning
than Harry Mulisch's stylized prose. There is a certain visual metaphor that pops up
about halfway through and is so ham-fisted it made me cringe. But you can get over that.

All in all, a solid 7.5/10, nice job.


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