I guess the life of a professional translator, and his or her efforts at self-promotion, can be bizarre
sometimes. I wonder how this thing will catch on.
For some reason I found myself reminiscing rhymes from a book titled “Tootles the Taxi”, which I
remember reading like more than three decades ago (I was 38 when I wrote this). This included me
watching the video accessible via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI8FlxIUzpo At my age, I
put it down to nostalgia. In any case, these are essentially rhymes for young children; it’s basically
various made-up fictional vehicles expressing who they are in short and simple rhymes (eight lines,
ABAB-ABAB). Quite endearing stuff.
But why would I bring this up here? Well… while I have actually written rhyming foreign language
translations of rhyming English material before, I guess I have basically succeeded in taking it to the next
level here. Click on the link and go to the Maurice the motor one at 2:50. What follows is a rhyming
French translation of it, which I did. There is some altered wording but it’s all my own work and I’m
proud of it:
Je suis Maurice la voiture
Un bleu vraiment clair
Tu serais surpris par ce
Que je peux faire !
Espace pour cinq personnes
Et valises, tu vois
Chaque fois ils adorent
Une balade faite en moi!
But brace yourself, because that’s not the best part! Remember the title of this article. Now, assuming
your mother tongue is English and you have at least a basic command of French, go ahead and translate
my own French rhyme above back into English – and please don’t feel embarrassed or awkward about me
fully inviting you to do literal French-to-English translation here! I think you will like the output. Even
Google Translate validates what I’m getting at here – I checked it.