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A comment on Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked. Parent comment

Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by isolli on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @02:17PM (#17181671)
An interesting example, one of the best-known book openings in French literature ("Aujourd'hui, maman est morte."), and the difficulties translating the sentence in English: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translat...
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Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by ahartmetz on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @03:17PM (#17182147)
Interesting article, and I believe I have a better translation: "Today, my mom died." It sounds better than just "mom" and seems to express the right level of closeness.

OTOH I think it's often appropriate to keep "mamma" in Italian movies and texts because it carries a huge amount of connotations, which "maman" doesn't.

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Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by jprissi on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @09:13AM (#17187375)
> Interesting article, and I believe I have a better translation: "Today, my mom died."

Well it's not an accurate translation, 'my' create a distance between the narrator and the mother that you don't have in the original sentence.

You traduction is much more objective than what the author wrote.

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Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by yesenadam on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @09:52PM (#17184395)
"Mom" is US English only I think.
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Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by dingaling on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @05:10PM (#17182934)
But then you have to translate for the majority of English-speaking countries that don't use 'mom'...
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Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by labster on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @12:05AM (#17184982)
"Mum"'s the word.
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Re:Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and tit... by taneq on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @07:31PM (#17183657)
Or if you use "mother" it changes the tone to be more preppy.
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