I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language and add no translation. When I am the reader, and the other considers me able to do the translating myself, he pays me the quite a nice compliment-- but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get along without the compliment. (A Tramp Abroad,1880)
quote by Mark Twain
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Poets Lost In Translation
several differing translations
of some masterpiece poems
written by immortal poets
timeless especially esteemed
written in foreign languages
stresses how much poetry
suffers lost in translation
it is the hardest literary
medium to translate due
to the multiple meanings
of some words choice chosen
in the original mother language
the wonderful poetic effects
linking such words achieves
resonates in receptive souls
Is a good translation only
achieved when the translator
is a poet with a mother tongue
knowledge of both languages
in use vibrating admiration?
Is an intimate knowledge
a unique empathic sensitivity
for chosen poet in translation
a prime necessity in translating
feelings emotions ideals writ?
poem by Terence George Craddock
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The biggest compliment to me is that guys really approach me and they have a connection with me, so there must be something I'm doing that is authentic, otherwise they wouldn't connect with me so strongly. It's a real compliment.
quote by Jeremy Piven
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First Encounter - Krishen Jit
Krishen Jit
his words of compliment
taste sweetest
not ready for compliment
sweet recollection
it has become
(first met in early 1980s at the New Straits Times Office, KL)
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.
quote by Paul Auster
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Well, I think every now and again, some people deserve to get their butts chewed. Every now and again some people deserve a pat on the back. What I try and do is compliment folk who deserve a compliment, and chew folks out who deserve to be chewed out.
quote by Judge Mills Lane
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I think it's his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.
quote by Deborah Cox
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It's nice that people want to compliment you in some superficial way, but I've never considered that that's how I might be categorized. I guess it's better than being called ugly.
quote by Ryan Phillippe
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By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.
quote by Samuel Johnson
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There must of course be a relationship between translating and making poems of your own, but what it is I just don't know.
quote by Robert Fitzgerald
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Pain
I'm hidden in the scream
When the virgin dies
I'm the ache in the belly
When your baby cries
And I'm the burnin' sensation
When the convict fries
I'm pain
I'm your pain
Unspeakable pain
I'm your private pain
And I'm the compound fracture
In the twisted car
And I'm the lines on the face
Of the tramp at the bar
And I'm the reds by the bed
Of the suicide star
You know me- I'm pain
I'm your pain
Your own private pain
Unfathomable pain
And it's a compliment to me
To hear you screamin' through the night
All night
Tonight
I'm the holes in your arm
When you're feeling the shakes
I'm the lump on your head
When you step on the rake
And I'm the loudest one laughing
At the saddest wake
Yes I'm pain
I'm just pain
Dear old pain
You need your pain
And I'm the loudest one laughing
At the saddest wake
I'm the salt in the sweat
On the cuts of the slaves
I was the wound in the side
While Jesus prayed
I was the filthiest word
At the vandalized grave
Yes, pain
Do you love me pain
I love my pain
I'm your pain
It's a compliment to me
To hear you screamin' through the night
All night
Tonight
song performed by by Alice Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I don't think it's by accident that I was first attracted to translating two French women poets.
quote by Marilyn Hacker
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If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.
quote by Marquis De Vauvenargues
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Some people pay a compliment as if they expected a receipt.
quote by Kim Hubbard
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And if people come up and say they like the movies you're in, it's a great compliment.
quote by Jason Statham
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Poems vs Songs
I may be right or I may be wrong
But, when you hear a singer singing a song
It is his or her voice that carries a message
With music providing an easier passage
To a space behind the eardrums
Resulting often in a rhythmical shaking
Of hips and boobs and flailing of arms
I may be wrong or I may be right
When you read a good poem it brings you delight
The rhyming of words makes poem tick
Your imagination does the trick
The poem's message illuminates the mind
Translating human language into language divine
When I'm writing my poetry, whether poem or song
The former always comes right and the latter wrong.
poem by Slava Olchevski
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Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.
Self-Mocking
Whenever I self mock
over a compliment I have been given
it is not to insult the person who gave it,
more to injure myself.
I can cope with most things
that are given to me except compliments.
Sound Strange?
When I was growing up many years ago,
I was belittled by family and friends alike.
They made me feel like a misfit,
so a misfit I became.
I endured insults about me
in every way shape and form.
Compliments were never given
and became a stranger to me.
Now that I am older,
I do not stand easy
when compliments are given
and I have to mock myself
and make a parody out of me.
I grew up feeling useless in everything I did.
They did not realise what they were doing
and hurting that they caused. I
t was not jokes they threw at me,
but hurting insults that made me feel insecure.
Now when compliments come
I cannot accept them readily.
I cannot accept that anyone
would want to compliment me,
so I self mock myself you see.
10 November 2008
poem by David Harris
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Have I Ever?
Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?
How your beauty outshines the brightest of stars?
How I love that twinkle that sparks in your eye
How the world can brighten when you smile
Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?
How everything about you is as perfect as is
That nothing compares to the sight of you
You are more beautiful than I can ever describe
A compliment to your body...
Most fine and curled like a vase
A compliment to your personality
So gentle and kind with grace
You are a princess and the queen of my heart
You are the best that ever came into my arms
Only God can be thanked for the pleasure of knowing you
Thank you for your friendship and just being you
You are beautiful just as you are
And more beautiful than any star
You are perfect as just the way you are
So shine more brightly than any star
poem by Hafeni Nghidinua
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They showed this one beautiful picture of me recently and they had all the things that I had done. I thought it was a great compliment for everybody to think I've had plastic surgery.
quote by Cybill Shepherd
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Whatever the medium, there is the difficulty, challenge, fascination and often productive clumsiness of learning a new method: the wonderful puzzles and problems of translating with new materials.
quote by Helen Frankenthaler
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