Progress Report, Week 4:

Pages Translated: 32
Pages Translated Since Last Week: 10
Pages Revised: 0
Last Page Translated: 42
Pages Remaining: 62

Made quota every day last week,  and usually did a bit better. Not too bad. This week will be a bit tougher, since I’m seeing fourteen movies, but once I make it through two film festivals life will become considerably less hectic.

I noticed that the Kennedy Center is producing a new translation of a Ferenc Molnár play, The Guardsman, in June, so I downloaded a copy of the original Hungarian edition. I already had a copy of the old 1924 translation by Grace Colbron and Hans Bartsch, which was further adapted for the American stage by Philip Moeller (who, I suspect, made the alterations the new translator, Richard Nelson, objected to). My next project, I think, will be to make a quick and dirty translation, comparing it to the 1924 translation as I go, and then seeing how Nelson handles the same material.

Progress Report, Week 3:

Pages Translated: 22
Pages Translated Since Last Week: 7
Pages Revised: 0
Last Page Translated: 32

Missed quota a few days, for which I really have no excuse. Just felt sort of listless a couple of days. I did start my taxes, which are about 98% done. (I’m waiting until I sort through all the crap on my desk to finish them, just in case I turn up a charitable donation I forgot about or something, which will have the nice bonus effect of giving me a more useable workspace for translation.)

You may notice a discrepancy between the number of pages translated since last week, and the difference in “Last Page Translated”. There were four pages with no text on them (illustrations, or blank pages on the back of illustrations), which affect the page numbering but of course don’t count towards the total of pages translated.

The DC Film Festival starts soon, so I think I’ll be doing well for the next couple of weeks if I just achieve my daily quota. I’m enjoying this translation project quite a bit, but I’m getting quite nervous about turning my rough drafts into polished prose. It doesn’t seem quite so hard when it’s just a vague ambition, but when it turns into an immediate prospect it becomes terrifying.