This goes for movies too, although it’s obviously harder to bowdlerise the translation for a movie than for a book.
I’ve been watching a number of Chinese films and TV series, typically with very literal subtitles, and I must say it’s a much better experience than the more “smoothly translated” versions that I was used to for foreign films.
The grammar is occasionally a bit dubious, and everything relies heavily on Chinese idioms, but it’s extremely faithful and makes a lot more sense as they don’t try to “hide” cultural aspects.
One detail that’s easy to notice, both in books and movies, is when the text refers to the spoken language. Very often I’m reading a French translation of a book from country X, and at some point someone refers to “French” when they obviously should have referred to the language from country X instead.
And the exact opposite happens as well. The Spider-man 3 film from 2007 has a scene in a French restaurant in New York. In the French dub of the film, the images are unchanged, but somehow they’re in an Italian restaurant instead.
Another notable example is the TV series “Alarm für Cobra 11” from Germany. The series takes place in the city of Köln and features many Turkish characters. The French dub of the series tried to hide as many Turkish references as possible; in particular the main character’s name was translated from “Semir Gerkhan” to “Sammy Guerçan” to hide his origin.
But I must say, some books I’ve read, in their original language, are in dire need of editing and trimming, though apparently they didn’t get it.
So, I guess publishers think it’s ok to cut dozens of pages of actual plot and character development, but leave uncut endless inner monologues, description repetitions and school-test-vocabulary-checklist-worthy dialogue. Ugh.
(I understand sometimes it’s better to have restricted access to something, than no access to something, but don’t fool the consumer.
Also, I legit know people who will answer “Yes” to “Have your read book X?” and they either mean they’ve watched the movie, read a chapter and stopped or read a “prepare for the test version”.
I’m also extra triggered by dramas where we get an edited version of all the couple scenes cut and glued together and everything else omitted, because viewers are only interested in the couple.
But I won’t discuss translation, because I’m triggered.)
Discussing things with “sola scriptura” people and then pulling the rug under their feet with the original New Testament quotes (which they cannot read), is one of the few really funny advantages of knowing the Greek language.
If you go into the rabbit hole - even at its entrance - you will find rabbid “self proclaimed Christians” that will declare their fanatical devotion to a specific Bible version (usualy KJV) that will say things like “I use a different version of the Bible as a doorstop because that translation sucks”. They’d gladly burn the originals, some of them are that far off the charts … anthropologists should really study these people. There are many PhDs ready to literally write themselves, just by observing their in(s)anity.
Considering the rewritings during the various Councils, I wonder if we really know what the originals were like. The Byzantines alone had rewritten the whole thing at least seven times unilaterally. I can only imagine how many times it happened in total worldwide.
Which is why it is important to know even a little bit about the history of your own religion that you proclaim fealty on (I am not talking about you, but the people that go bananas over scriptural accuracy).
It is baffling to me that there are so many Christians that seem to believe that “this is the Bible, that’s the word of God and nothing else, believe in it or you will Go To Heeeeeell” and not even know that it is mostly a book made after a political and theological struggle that was the concensus of various factions of the historical times that it was written. And if you point that out to them, they go ballistic as if you are somehow responsible for their ignorance and the actual reality.
I mean you do not need to know the details. Just know what it is that you are reading.
How can people say “YAY Bible! ” and at the same time say "2000 years of history? Naaaaaaah "
Yes and go smoothly, no need to rush to the top. When i played i found a lot of nice people to play with and you can compose your menu (like a stronger.a weaker and a fair for example)
Ladders are fun and you can pick your opponents (upward) so you can choose to play against stronger or weaker or even, that’s up to you.
Up to 6 games (3 as challenger, 3 as challenged) and you don’t need to rush. You’re not compelled to challenge anyone (but you can’t avoid challenges from other players).
There’s just one thing I don’t like about ladders, but it happens only when you get to your personal best placement. So you don’t have to worry: it’ll talke months or even years!
Oh, yes, sometimes some stronger unfair player will challenge you just to crush you and go up: just remember that you can resign at any time, they’ll go and you’ll have a free slot for some better opponent.
I meant that some strong player can challenge you from below just to collect an easy win and go up.
You can only challenge up. But you are free to challenge weaker players. Somebody does that. It isn’t fun at all, but it’s easily manageable. Sometimes I resigned at the first move, when the opponent’s rank was too high to have a decent even game.
I just happened to bump into georgian writing system. It’s fascinating.
I wonder what could be the link between that and elvish language.
Maybe some fellow from Middle Earth arrived there a long long time ago.
I’m learning something!
Now I see that I used the wrong term: I should’ve said “scripts”.
I love calligraphy and was specifically thinking about Georgian and elvish scripts and calligraphy.
Unfortunately wikipedia doesn’t mention possible sources of inspiration for Tolkien’s scripts.
Maybe I should just investigate more.
Edit: this could be useful!
“The present work aims to study Tolkien’s calligraphy taking into consideration the historical scripts and manuscripts that may have served as models for his ornamental writing in Latin script.”
The players at positions #1 to #10-#15 of each sitewide ladder tend to be strong, but for all other positions, ladders reward activity much more than they reward strength, so it’s pretty common to have players below you in the ladder but above you in rating. So you can be “challenged from below” by a stronger player.
When a ladder game ends, the system checks the current positions of the players involved. If the winner is ranked lower than the loser, the winner is moved into a position right above the loser.
This can create some cases where player can rise from being challenged by someone that was initially lower.
For example, imagine that Alice is 10th in a ladder, while Bob and Charlie are currently 15th and 5th. Suppose Bob challenges both Alice and Charlie to games. If Bob first wins his game against Charlie, Bob would then take the 5th spot, pushing down Charlie to 6th and Alice to 11th. However, if Alice then wins against Bob, she would jump up to 5th, pushing down Bob and Charlie to 6th and 7th.
In the mechanism of the ladder, the strength of the players doesn’t count. If the challenger wins he goes up by taking the place, and you go down just below him (not where he was). Simple. You can challenge 3 and be challenged by 3.
Declining a challenge is like a loss in the ladder mechanism (but not in the rating mechanism when done early).
” and at the same time say "2000 years of history? Naaaaaaah 
"
