Ranmaro's zone : )

[magician2magici]

hello everyone , how are you doing ?

after the success of my novel at egypt - 3 editions in nearly a year - i decided to begin translating my novel into english , preparing it for world wide publishing .

so , i need you to help me in my novel , i'll translate parts everyday and post some of them here , and i hope you criticize me strongly

thx for your help : )

M2M


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FIRST CHAPTER :

1.The Attack

​

The warm rays of this warm sunny day crept shyly slowly trying to evenly cover the whole place , almost succeeded , except a few places scattered here and there where these small trees eclipse the rays and prevent it from reaching its territory , under one of the shadows of those , two boys sat talking quietly in this wonderful place

-What agreat day ! the shortest said smiling , leaning on his back beside his fellow

-Yes, it's a beautiful day , the other dark haired replied with his eyes relaxly closed .

The first boy took a deep breath , keeping it in his chest for a few moments and releasing it with ease enjoying the good day , it’s Monday , isn’t it ?! he asked.

The other boy Smiled , realizing what’s behind the words of his companion , so he only shooked his head , making his friend to continue pushing him by asking :

- Would not your relative come tomorrow?

The other young fellow Raised one of his eyebrows in disapproval clearly to what he just heard , followed by shooking his head, denying what he heard before , No, she is not my realtive , sadly answered with a long sad look followed later by saying :

- I never get visited from any of my relatives .. never!

The other boy changed at once his sitting to be facing his friend after finding an opportunity to spend what’s left in this day , then said to him:

- Why don’t your relatives visit you ?

Time Passed for a long moment of silence in which the boy did not speak a word until his companion shaked him , and saying:

- What is with you , Ranmaro?!

Ranmaro looked at him murmuring:

- No. .. Nothing, nothing.

- What do you mean nothing? you did not answer my question yet!

-I do not know but they did not come to visit me here, and I do not really know the reason . Ranmaro said with faint smile . it was clear that he was lying , judging from his tone of voice , his looks were revealing that too , but the boy in front of him did not pay any attention to any of that, inspite of being aware that he is lying, he moved to another hot spot of the talk,

- but I just can not imagine that a person is here and his parents still alive , he said.

Ranmaro slowly swallowed his already dry mouse , while the boy continued his stare in ranmaro’s eyes , saying:

-Believe me, it is confusing, why do not you go and live with your parents?

- I can not!

Ranmaro spoke like someone who wished to quickly end the debate ,and stood up , about to leave trying his best to escape from the talk on this subject, but the boy seemed happy to hunt down this point where he stood , even probably faster than Ranmaro himself and said while walking side by side to ranmaro :

- Why can not you? Are they divorced? or they are not married yet? Why ..

- shut up !

Uttered Ranmaro shouting in the face of the boy, while the later looked staggered by the reaction of Ranmaro which moved at speed for leaving the place , once ported from the wooden door , walked in the path lined on both sides by medium-lengthen trees which did not prevent him from seeing what is going on at the private sector of Orphanage made for different sports , where he spotted a group of girls standing around a girl holding a bow and arrow, Ranmaro stopped walking and took a long breath , as deep as possible to calm down his anger , meanwhile he kept watching the girl while she launched the arrow brilliantly to fit in the centre of the black focus , with both accuracy and power, accompanied by a wave of girls Cry of joy with an applause from her colleagues, she turned to them as she talks happily , with joy appearing on her face . Ranmaro kept following her moves till their eyes came in contact together accidently , as soon as she ceased speaking , he did not stand in the place for any more moments , as he felt the heat affecting his body like a storm, and his heart beats accelerated , he rushed climbing over the stairs of the main building of orphanage , passing across the hall in a quick wide steps and Delivered a salute to his teacher of English before he climbed the stairs again to reach the fourth floor , where he lives .


to be followed

 

[J Riff]

Yikes! Take out .. or put in the stuff in ()

The warm rays of a (this) (warm- twice in sentence) sunny day crept shyly (across...something)(,) slowly trying to evenly cover the whole place, (and) almost succeeded , except (for) a few places (scattered-places can't be scattered) here and there where (these) small trees eclipse(d) the (sun's)rays and prevent(ed) (it) them from reaching (its territory)
their destination(.) Under (one of) the shadows of one such tree(those), two boys sat talking quietly. (in this wonderful place)
-
What a great day! said the shortest, smiling (as he) lean(ed) (on his) back beside his fellow.

I would wait until you have this part fixed up, at least ballpark, before posting any more.

 

[magician2magici]

Yikes! Take out .. or put in the stuff in ()

The warm rays of a (this) (warm- twice in sentence) sunny day crept shyly (across...something)(,) slowly trying to evenly cover the whole place, (and) almost succeeded , except (for) a few places (scattered-places can't be scattered) here and there where (these) small trees eclipse(d) the (sun's)rays and prevent(ed) (it) them from reaching (its territory)
their destination(.) Under (one of) the shadows of one such tree(those), two boys sat talking quietly. (in this wonderful place)
-
What a great day! said the shortest, smiling (as he) lean(ed) (on his) back beside his fellow.

I would wait until you have this part fixed up, at least ballpark, before posting any more.

great , i have learned something from you now : )

i got your view , and i'll try to fix what i have wrote till now , and repost it here ,

give me couple of days to practice more and i hope the next will be better .

thx alot
M2M

 

[Pyan]

Book translation is a highly specialised, difficult job, usually done by professionals employed by the publishers of the original. I honestly don't think that this way of doing it is going to be successful, as what you're doing is not only a translation, but a critique as well. And quite apart from anything else, there may be copyright issues involved in putting it on an open website.

If you're really serious about publishing this in English, talk to your Egyptian edition's publisher. I would strongly advise you to do so before putting any more of your book online.

 

[J Riff]

What Pyan said.
M2M, people can only do so much in here. We certainly can't translate Egyptian - neither are you going to master English in the
next few days. I don't reckon many others will have a go at this
- it needs structural redesign from the ground up, so like Pyan said, a job for a pro.

 

[magician2magici]

Book translation is a highly specialised, difficult job, usually done by professionals employed by the publishers of the original. I honestly don't think that this way of doing it is going to be successful, as what you're doing is not only a translation, but a critique as well. And quite apart from anything else, there may be copyright issues involved in putting it on an open website.

If you're really serious about publishing this in English, talk to your Egyptian edition's publisher. I would strongly advise you to do so before putting any more of your book online.

What Pyan said.
M2M, people can only do so much in here. We certainly can't translate Egyptian - neither are you going to master English in the
next few days. I don't reckon many others will have a go at this
- it needs structural redesign from the ground up, so like Pyan said, a job for a pro.

pyan , Riff , how are you doing ?
well , i must say that i was oriented of what you both said , there are risks for what i'm doing , and i didn't hear before of someone did something like this before .

but , i live in a world kind different than yours indeed , publishing here isn't open minded like yours , translating the work is a joke here , no one has ever looked beyond the egyptian and arabic frontier .

so , i have to seek glory myself , it's long road , and i know it well as i took it in the same steps in learning how to write in arabic litterature , so i know how much i will struggle to reach my goal .

and about pro translation , it would be costy , a lot costy here , and i don't expect good translation like i need , maybe my level will be much higher if i did it my way and have a lot patience !

i'm not planning in making you guys translate with me , i want to know what mistakes i have , what rules in english different than that's in arabic , there are so many common between both ,
you'll just guide me , and eventually i'll post a page - one page only - every while , so that i can learn more about my mistakes .

the paragraph i chose was simple , which expressed my style in writing , so this is like the basic of my writings . then there are certain areas where your opinions are important .

also i will go throughout all the topics here to help me go deeper at mistakes , as i believe beginners share the same mistakes .

what i need to say in brief , i knew what you said and i knew the risks , but i'm going through it whatever it takes .

finally i know it may take a year from me to master my skills in english , and i hope i can do it .

thanks alot for your warnings : )

N.B.
any other mistake you see in my style , also if you find a topic important and helpful , i hope u share me with your thoughts

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

However from my point of view, the copyright laws apply.

I can't see the point of critiquing an already published work . If as you say, your Egyptian publishers are not interested, there will be people that you can employ to do this professionally.

In my experience (technical manuals etc.) translating from one language to another is best done by a native speaker of the second language. Doing ithe way you suggest, is possibly the worst option.

As in the following from above :-

magician2magic
...
the paragraph i chose was simple , which expressed my style in writing , so this is like the basic of my writings

could be expressed as (and I'm no expert )

I hoped the extract I posted above, would give an impression of my style of writing.

However, expecting this level of 'cleaning up' from unpaid 'friends' might result in the strain may become unbearable.


You say you don't need/expect a good translation. If so what's the point.

As for expense, I'm sure you could find some English students studying in Egypt that would jump at the chance of some extra cash. However, you will have to get the contractual legalities sorted out if you don't want to find that your best seller has been 'adapted'. It isn't too difficult to take someones basic story and use it as a source. With enough changes, it could be made to make it seem original.

On the other hand I can see the advantage of getting it properly translated as the rewards could be massive in cash terms, if as you say, you have had some success with it in Egypt.

Hope I helped

TEiN

 

[The Judge]

magician, first of all may I congratulate ou on your English. I can barely string a sentence together in French, which I studied for some years, so I am full of admiration for those who can speak another language so well. But -- and I'm afraid this is a big but -- good as your English is, it isn't good enough for your self-translated novel to be published here by a respectable publisher.

You have made many mistakes of grammar and punctuation -- even the layout of your prose is not what we would expect to see. (We use quotation marks eg "like this" to distinguish dialogue, and we wouldn't italicise it except for emphasis, nor we would bold the non-dialogue.) All of these things can be learned, and I have no doubt that if you applied yourself, in time you could master them. But, frankly, I would be astonished if you managed to eliminate every mistake of this kind -- even native English speakers commonly make these errors, and it is a frequent complaint here that, for instance, English (and American!) work which has been self-published is riddled with so many faults as to be virtually unreadable.

More importantly, no one who spoke English fluently would write sentences such as Uttered Ranmaro shouting in the face of the boy, while the later looked staggered by the reaction of Ranmaro which moved at speed for leaving the place , once ported from the wooden door -- this barely makes sense. Again, mistakes of this kind could be eliminated, but writing correct English, which can be taught, is very different from writing idiomatic English, which is something acquired from using it on a regular basis. A professional writer needs to have mastered both.

I agree with everyone else that translating your own work is unlikely to be a success and I would urge you to think again about enlisting some outside help. TEiN's suggestion of students, or perhaps an ex-pat living in Egypt, is a good one. Meanwhile, in case it is of help, here is a section where we have put together some basic rules of grammar etc http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/51521-the-toolbox.html

One last thing. I suspect, on the basis of this opening chapter, that the tastes of your Egyptian/Arabic readers may be very different from those of SFF readers in the West. I don't know how much English language fiction you read, but I think that time spent studying the market would be worthwhile.