Translation exercises

Translation exercise 1

• Study the language of the characters and their way of speaking in order to reconstruct the rhythmic melody of each of them in the dialogue. Analyse the moods of the characters and reconstruct the general atmosphere of the dialogue.

• Read the text aloud (role reading) and estimate the time each character spends in the scene.

• Study the vocabulary of the text to identify translation problems and ways of solving them.

• Study the syntax of the speech to be performed and identify translation problems.

• Analyse stylistic variants of the characters' speech and reconstruct them in Russian.

• Translate the text literally, read it out loud and see if the result is performable.  Try to follow the rhythmic pattern of each character as identified in English. Discuss the result.

Long Day's Journey into Night

Mary {Goes slowly to the windows at right like an autom­aton — looking out, a blank, far-off quality in her voice.):

Just listen to that awful foghorn. And the bells. Why is it fog makes everything sound so sad and lost, I wonder?

Edmund {Brokenly): I  can't stay here. I don't want any dinner. {He hurries away through the front parlor.

She keeps staring out the window until she hears the front door close be­hind him. Then she comes back and sits in her chair, the same blank look on her face.)

Mary (Vaguely.): I must go upstairs. I haven't taken enough. {She pauses — then longingly.) I hope, sometime, without mean­ing it, I will take an overdose. I never could do it deliberately. The Blessed Virgin would never forgive me, then. {She hears Ty­rone, returning and turns as he comes in, through the back par­lor, with a bottle of whiskey he has just uncorked.

He is fuming.)