Situational Awareness

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS / UNDERSTANDING FOR THE PURPOSE OF TRANSLATION

I wrote this blog for the purpose of relating a certain abstract concept to the pursuit of “good and confident translation” – I intended to highlight the importance of the former in connection with the latter. And I was very excited about posting this blog…

It’s like this…

This is an episode of Wil Cwac Cwac, a children’s cartoon series which was originally in Welsh before it got translated into English in order to reach a larger audience. I have a few slight memories of Wil Cwac Cwac from my early childhood – but that’s another story. Anyway, you may have noticed that this link is to an episode of it which is in Welsh and not English. Yes, that’s what I wanted. And I loved what I did as part of the work behind the writing of this blog. It’s like this…

First, I ventured my best guess at a good English “translation” of it all, based solely on me paying very close attention to what I saw as I watched it, while being committed to sagacious speculation, if that makes sense. Sometimes I would watch a bit more ahead of a given statement for the purpose of seeking some sort of credence to whatever I would provide as an educated guess of an accurate English “translation” of this statement. Seriously, I know the names of the characters in Wil Cwac Cwac and the key facts about them, and sometimes I heard their names in the Welsh speech that you hear in this episode even though I don’t speak Welsh; but don’t take my word for the content of this story any more than that of Llinos Griffin, a professional translator in Wales that I found on LinkedIn, and the owner of Gwefus. For I hired this Welsh woman to translate the spoken words of this episode of Wil Cwac Cwac here into English for me; and now I provide the content of what my best guess of an English translation of what it all was, followed by this woman’s translation of it. I am inviting comparison here. God, I loved this exercise. And thank you Llinos, for it was your work for me that made this blog possible.

THE PRODUCT OF MY GUESSING
WIL, SIONI AND THE BIKES
As Wil was eating his breakfast one morning, his friend Sioni turned up to see him.
“One of your friends is here!”, said Martha. “He wants to speak with you.”
“Really, Mum?” said Wil, as he walked up to them.
“Well, aren’t you pleased to see him?” [considering that Wil doesn’t look very happy as he’s approaching] [I know that Wil’s mother speaks two sentences at that point] “Don’t you want to go bike riding with him?” [For Sioni rings the bell on his bike right then]
“Oh, alright [quack],” said Wil.
“It’ll be fun!”, said Sioni – he certainly seemed eager for it.
Knowing that they would be passing the house of her friend Mari Pickles during their bike ride, Wil’s mother saw an opportunity. And so Martha prepared a box; a box which she brought to Wil. [I heard “Wil” at the end of that sentence.]
“Wil, could you deliver something for me?”
“Alright, Mum”, responded Wil.
“Very well, we’ll do that,” said Sioni. [Maybe the narrator didn’t specifically say that Wil’s mother wanted them to deliver it to Mari Pickles, even though she would have done in the actual story?]
And so they went to Mari Pickles’ house. They took the old path that led into the woods, and eventually emerged at the end of the street.
“Good morning, Mr. Owie Policeman” they said as they passed by him – making him jump. [I didn’t hear Wil’s name in that sentence.]
“Wh… what was that?” [Just that he was distracted in that he was reading a book.]
They carried on riding, past Mr. Puw The Shop [I heard his name]. And finally, they reached Mari Pickles.
She looked very pleased. “Oh, this is a pleasant surprise! [I originally thought her first sentence was “Oh, my parcel has arrived!”] Thank you very much, Wil! [I heard Wil’s name there.] How nice of you to make this for me. Would you like a bit?”
Wil was taken aback. “I didn’t make it. Sioni and I just delivered it to you. We were told to.”
[Sioni]: “No, you are mistaken, Mari Pickles. Wil’s mother told us to give you this – she never told us what it was. Right, Wil?”
“…Quack, yes…” said, Wil, disappointed. [At not having a piece of the cake after all – what else? The same can be said of Sioni.]
And so they left. “Ta-ta!”, said Mari Pickles.
Mr. Owie Policeman saw them as they were riding back, and he was a bit irritated by their next comment to him. But he refused to let it show.
“Hello again, Mr. Owie Policeman!”
“…On your way, Wil.” [Again, I heard “Wil” at what I thought was the end of a sentence there. I thought this was the narrator saying something that Mr. Owie Policeman said (under his breath), in his own voice.]
“I can ride faster than you, Sioni!”
And they both pedalled quickly. And they didn’t stop it when they got back. They rode around the front garden, over-excited, stopping by the pond. That was when they had an accident. Both launched from their bikes, Wil and Sioni landed in the pond, ending up completely filthy. After they had gotten undressed, Hwmffra pumped water on them to help get them clean again. Martha was kind to them after this, and she brought them into the kitchen and gave each of them a piece of spider cake. [I know that Wil likes spider cake ?]
As Wil went to sleep that night, he thought, “That was an exciting day, wasn’t it?” Good night! Quack!

AND THIS IS AN ACTUAL TRANSLATION OF IT, PROVIDED BY LLINOS
WIL AND SIONI AND THE BIKES
One morning, Sioni Ceiliog Glas came along on his bike to play with Wil for the day.
“I want you to run an errand for me,” said Martha, “before you go out to play.”
“An errand, Mum?” said Wil as his heart sank, but things got better when his mother said:
“Perhaps you’d both like to go?”
“Ok. Quack,” said Wil.
“My pleasure, yeah,” said Sioni who knew how to behave away from home.
The errand was to take a freshly-made spider cake to Mari Picls because she had been ill. Martha placed the cake in a box, and the box in a sack behind Wil’s bike seat.
“Now, Wil, don’t paddle too fast in case you smash the cake.”
“Ok, Mam,” replied Wil.
“and Ta ta for now, then,” said Sioni.
They both set off straight away to Mari Picls’ house – through the forest to the village going past Ifan Twrci Tenau’s house and slowly going round the corner by Owi Plismon’s house and calling:
“Good morning, Mr Owi Plismon,” whilst going past causing him to fall out of his hammock in the garden.
“W-w-what, little ones?”
But by the time he got up on his feet, they had both disappeared past Mr Puw Siop Bob Dim’s shop. Then, they arrived at Mari Picls’ cottage.
How pleased she was to see the cake.
“Ooooh, it looks lovely. Fair play to your mother, Wil. Tell her that I am very grateful. And how about you two have a piece of cake each?”
Now, Wil would have said: “Thank you very much” without a second thought; but as Sioni knew how to behave away from home, he gave him a nudge and said:
“No, no thanks, Mari Picls. Wil’s mum, yeah, is expecting us back – but thank you for offering all the same, no, yeah, Wil?…Hmm?”
“Quack…yes,” said Wil reluctantly.
Then, off they both went saying ta ta to Mari Picls.
Owi Plismon was standing on the pavement when they both went past, but as they were paddling slowly and keeping close to the side of the road, they weren’t doing anything wrong.
“Good Morning again, Mr Owi Plismon.”
After turning the corner, however, Wil shouted:
“First one to the farm, Sioni!”
And off they went at the speed of lightning.
After they arrived home, they both decided to do tricks around the yard. Making a big circle to start, then a middle-sized one and then a small one.
Then, they made a zigzag path. Both bikes went one way and Wil and Sioni the other, straight into the compost heap.
Well, you probably know what happened next.
Wmffra pumping water over them and both of them running around the yard to dry off.
Martha gave them a piece of her mind for getting their clothes dirty but as they had both run an errand for her, she forgave them for everything and they had a piece of cake each and when Wil went to bed that night, he felt that he had had quite a good day on the whole.
Good night…Quack.

FINAL COMMENTS
When I was guessing what the narrator was saying before I got a proper translation of this story from Llinos: according to my reasoning, Mari Pickles guessed, incorrectly, that Wil had made the cake for her (with the help of his mother) and that it was a surprise for her. Although I was correct in my suspicion that she offered some to Wil and Sioni, I was wrong to think that Wil, given this, out of conscience, felt that it wasn’t really “his” cake, and that’s why he turned it down. The gift of the cake would pretty much definitely have been his mother’s idea anyway… I never guessed that Mari Pickles was ill – and she doesn’t look it when she opens the door to Wil and Sioni – but then, if Llinos said that she “had been ill” rather than “was ill”, then to me that suggests that she is not necessarily ill any longer. I mean…

Was my own guesswork really that bad?