(YES, even) my job can be funny.

From the category:“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”:








Well...could have been worse. Good thing it wasn't "Hello!"




"And was strooooling trough the park one day,
Where I saw a lot of Nazis and KKK”)))




Damn! Those grammar books that I used as coffee holders during college never did advantage me.




As the great Roman Jakobson would say, WTF ?????




Hmmm...Even Google translates more logically, and it is a damn robot.




No drinks or sexual arousement allowed. Kind of boring..ha?





After hearing the phrase "liar liar pants on fire",pathological liars thought it would be safer to hang around the biggest swimming center in the world. Unfortunately, it seems that the Chinese authorities have caught on to them!!





FRESH = CORRECT (English), CARP (FISH) = CRAP (FISH) (in some languages) CORRECT. The worst possible combination = PRICELESS





Environmental protection vs. voodoo






I love it when things that technically are correct lead to the biggest mistake of your life. Hence the word ... verify.






The robber special. Includes happy hours.





HMM...I'm pretty convinced that the translator was on drugs at this one.





Apparently there is a country, where molluscs are used as ID cards. Remember to take a big wallet with you in case you go there.



AND THE WINNER (OR IN THIS CASE,LOSER), DEAR FOLKS:




When Confucius said “Sincerity is the way of heaven”, I don’t think he had THIS in mind…

Just for fun...

After such 'deep' thoughts in the first couple of posts, I decided to lighten the mood up a bit in here for a change. The following post, which I found on www.boardofwisdom.com, a web site that I can truly recommend, made me laugh myself to bits. Enjoy!


------------ The Paradox Of The English Language-----------------

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither
apple or pine in pineapple. And while no one knows what is
in a hotdog, you can be pretty sure it isn't canine.

English muffins were not invented in England nor French
fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't
sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are
square, and guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of
booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, two meese?
Is cheese the plural of choose? One mouse, 2 mice. One louse,
2 lice. One house, 2 hice?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian
eat?

Why do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?
Ship by truck or car and send cargo by ship? Have noses
that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive
on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

How can the weather be hot as heck one day and cold as
heck another? When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill
in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by
going on. You get in and out of a car, yet you get on and
off a bus. When the stars are out, they are visible, but when
the lights are out, they are invisible.

And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I
wind up this essay, I end it?

English can be such a silly language sometimes ... it doesn't know if it is
coming or going!!!

We Have Time

Well, dear readers...


This is where the idea (and need) for this blog, originally sprung.

Ever since I first read this poem, I was absolutely mesmerized by it.

I've read miles of poetry during my lifetime, both for my personal pleasure as well as for my school studies and I must admit, there were a lot of poems that I didn't like.

I have particular expectations when it comes to poetry. The first ones that I don't like, are poems that are bursting with metaphors, hyperbola, anastrophe (you name it...), just for the sake of being "poetic". The first to spawn must be the ideas, then the poem, which must lead back to the author's ideas. Not just a bunch of fancy words. Of course, the author must have the sublimity that most novices lack. I like poems with a hint of mystery to them, but not to that point where you need to read 4 or 5 reviews just to make something out of the poem.

Back to my poem... The poem is called "Avem Timp"/"We Have Time", written by the Romanian poet Octavian Paler (1926-2007). In my opinion, the beautiful simplicity and stunning idealism of this poem is what captured my heart. But I won't comment on it further, I will let you make your own impression about it. That was my original goal. I wanted to show this poem to a lot of my friends who don't speak or understand Romanian, but I couldn't because there was no translation available (or so I thought...). So I took some time free...and translated it myself.

Translating poetry is, in fact, translating an emotion. The emotion captured in the poem. To take the emotion out of the words is not that easy. Therefore, in translating poetry, there are no “accurate versions", neither does the accurate reproduction of the form or rhyme count; it’s all about the emotions captured and rendered in such way that the reader of the translation feels the same emotion as the one who reads the original poem...

I enjoyed translating this poem very much… and I hope you will do the same reading it. The ironic thing... after I translated it I browsed the web...and found that others had already translated it. Well destiny has it that, I may be not the first who translated this poem, but now I can proudly say, when asked: “Have you got the English version? Yes! I have MY version!“...


We have time

By Octavian Paler


Translation by Alexandru Frateanu


We have time for everything,
To sleep, to run back and forth,
To regret what we've done wrong and to blunder again,
To judge others and to absolve ourselves.
We have time to read and write,
To correct what we have written, to regret what we have written,
We have time to do projects and not meet the deadlines,
We have time to create illusions and stir trough their ashes later,
We have time for ambitions and diseases,
To blame our destiny or the small details of our life,
We have time to watch the clouds, commercials or a random accident.
We have time to chase away our questions,
To avoid the answers.
We have time to shatter a dream and reinvent it,
We have time to make friends, to lose them.
We have time to receive lessons and forget them afterwards.
We have time to receive gifts and not understand them.
We have time for everything.


There’s only time for just a little bit of tenderness
After we manage to do that, we die.


I've learned some things in life that I want to share with you.
I learned that you cannot make someone love you
All you can do is be a beloved person,
The rest … depends on others.
I learned that no matter how much I care,
Others may not.
I learned that it takes years to earn trust,
But it takes only seconds to lose it.
I learned that it doesn’t matter WHAT you’ve got in life, but WHOM you’ve got.
I learned that you can manage in life, and your charm is useful about 15 minutes,
After that, you’d better know something.
I learned that you mustn’t compare to what others do best,
But with what you can do best.
I learned that it doesn’t matter what happens to people,
But what can I do about it.
I learned that anyway you split it,
Everything has two sides.
I learned that you have to depart from your beloved ones with kind words,
It could be the last time you’ll ever see them.
I learned that you can go on for a long time,
After you said you couldn’t go on anymore.
I learned that heroes are the one that do the right thing at the right moment,
No matter the consequences.
I learned that there are people, who love you,
But who don’t know how to show it to you.
I learned that when I’m upset I have the RIGHT to be upset,
But I don’t have the right to be mean.
I learned that true friendship continues to exist even at a great distance,
And that also goes for true love.
I learned that, if someone doesn’t love you the way you want it,
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you from all his heart.
I learned that no matter how good a friend someone is,
He will sometimes hurt you
And you must forgive him for that.
I learned that sometimes it’s not enough to be forgiven by others,
Sometimes you must learn to forgive yourself.
I learned that no matter how much you suffer,
The world will not come to a stop because of your pain.
I learned that the past and circumstances may influence your personality,
But in the end YOU are responsible for what you become.
I learned that if two people fight, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other,
And if they don’t fight doesn’t mean that they do.
I learned that sometimes you must put forward the person,
And not his actions.
I learned that two people can look at the same thing,
And see something completely different.
I learned that no matter the consequences,
Those who stay true to their selves will succeed in life.
I learned that your entire life can be changed in just hours
By people who don’t even know you.
I learned that even if you think you have nothing left to give,
When a friend cries out for help, you will find the strength to help him.
I learned that writing, like taking,
Can ease the pain in your soul.
I learned that people who you cherish the most,
Are taken away too soon.
I learned that it’s hard to tell,
Where to draw the line between being kind and not hurting others,
And sustaining your beliefs.


I learned to love,
So I can be loved

I learned…



I'm sorry if some lines did't fit in the column properly, but even blogs have their limits. I hope you enjoyed reading this poem...

The Confusion of Tongues...

I bet some of you wonder why I chose this tile for my blog, what philosophical beliefs lie beyond this metaphorical phrase. Well, in order to (hopefully) understand my reason, i will explain, more or less in detail, why i chose this title:

As a man of letters, my life evolves around the study of languages. Of course, this involves many areas of study, from the well known grammar to the lesser known phraseology, linguistics and so on. No worries, i won't start holding a lecture about grammar here.

The subject i want to get to is the history of languages. I must admit I found a particular liking for this subject, and one of the lessons that I enjoyed was about the creation of languages. Of course, this is not the scientific explanation, but still, in my mind, i prefer it because it has a certain fascination to it (well...for me at least) and always makes me, at least for a second, reflect about the moment when the tower collapsed and we were destined to roam the earth and never again be as one people with one language, but to form cultures and nations. I am talking about the collapse of the Tower of Babel.



"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.

The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world.

From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth."

Book of Genesis, 1-9

The Confusion of Tongues (pictured above), is in fact a 18-th century engraving made by the French artist Gustave Dore.

I like the title because it's a perfect metaphor for what we as the human race really are ... as we are scattered over the face of the earth, to the four winds and from one end to another, we are still one giant community, one nation. We all left by God the same, with two arms, two legs, one heart, one soul, yet still we are confused by our tongues, who don't speak the same...

Prologue...

And...here I am, now officially a blogger.

I can hardly believe it myself, for all of my life i shunned the concept of blogs, blogging and bloggers. To me, almost all of them looked like a 10 year old girl scout's diary... and to this day, 80 percent of them still look the same to me. But over the years, some of them (those from the remaining 20 percent, the better and sometimes pretty good ones) came in pretty handy ... I've found very useful stuff on blogs, from tutorials to holiday ideas and so on, and i found that blogs can sometimes be a very good environment for sharing information.
But i still didn't feel the need for a blog. That need came a few days ago, when i translated my favorite poem (you'll see more of that in the following post) and couldn't find the right medium for posting it on. Facebook, Hi5 and other social networking sites just did't fit the bill. I needed something better. I needed...a blog!

Well that's the story in a nutshell ... now I must clarify some other aspects.

First of all, I must say I intended this blog to be a semi-professional one, a place where I will post some of my translations and various other professional aspects, but in a neat and loose format, so you won't be bored to death after the first couple of posts. Of course not all the posts will be about translation and translating, some posts will be about day to day experiences (don't be fooled of course, I promise you this blog won't become over time a girl scout's diary !), some will be about current wold events ( All except politics. Politics will not be posted or discussed on this blog. Whoever wants to comment on politics, may do it in another place.)

That brings me to the second aspect: comments. Comments will be allowed on this blog, with some basic rules:

1.I do not want this blog to become another social networking site...so please keep the links, adds, mass comments and other spam for Facebook. Or still better, quit this habit. The best thing you will get out of this is to annoy people.

2. I will write on this blog in plain English, to everybody's understanding. It's possible that some translations will be written in German, but the explanations will be in English. You are free to comment in any language you like (preferably English, German and Romanian).

3. Please do not copy my works. This is only a please. I know the risks of a public website, and that I'm powerless to stop anyone if he truly desires to steal my works. If you do that, please let it be for your personal needs. That will be more O.K. with me than finding my work all spread across the internet.


Having said that, I wish you all the best and i hope you will enjoy my posts.

Your sincerely,

Alexandru Gheorghe Frateanu

TRANSLATOR AUTHORIZED BY THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE