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Danish to English - Rates: 0.05 - 0.10 EUR per word / 20 - 45 EUR per hour French to English - Rates: 0.05 - 0.10 EUR per word / 20 - 45 EUR per hour Norwegian (Nynorsk) to English - Rates: 0.05 - 0.10 EUR per word / 20 - 45 EUR per hour English to Danish - Rates: 0.05 - 0.10 EUR per word / 20 - 45 EUR per hour
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Sample translations submitted: 1
Danish to English: LITERARY NOVEL 1
Source text - Danish Flugt gennem vand
Af Sol Slej
Kapitel 1
Jeg ser ansigter hver dag.
De er overalt, på gaden, i metroen, på cafeerne er der fuld af dem. Jeg prøver at lade være med at tænke på, hvor gammelt mit er, jeg er bare så pokkers god til tal.
Når jeg står der på gaden/til træning/på cafeerne, og et ansigt venligt spørger om jeg vil redde verdens sultne og forfrosne børn/om jeg har lyst til at prøve buttrobic/om min latte skal være skinny – så slår det mig alligevel altid, at det kunne være ansigtet på mit menneske, det menneske jeg har haft inde i maven.
For jeg fik aldrig set, hvem det var, jeg hørte kun politikvinden tilfreds konstatere, at det var en pige.
- Hun er helt perfekt. Tak.
Og så tog hun min pige og gik. Jeg lå alene tilbage og fødte moderkagen. Men det tænker jeg aldrig på mere.
* * *
Jeg vågner altid med et sæt på min fødselsdag. Som en der har svømmet alt for længe under vandet og stikker hovedet op, gispende efter vejret. Jeg bliver 34.
Så er jeg dobbelt så gammel som dengang jeg var sytten og politikvinden tog min datter, mens mine forældre og lillesøster ventede derhjemme med morgenbrød.
Op må jeg. Op og i gang. Der skal ske noget på min fødselsdag. Den skal fyldes helt ud til kanten. Hvis der er læsset rigtig meget på, hvis jeg skal noget fra morgen til midnat, så kan der gå lang tid, op til flere minutter hvor jeg ikke tænker på dengang for sytten år siden.
Min dag er pakket sammen. Alle delene støder op mod hinanden som en gavekalender på snor.
Ikke kun i dag, men alle dage. Det er den nemmeste måde at organisere sig på. Så ved man altid, hvad man skal hvornår med hvem. Så er der ingen overraskelser. Man kan få sit liv ødelagt af overraskelser, hvis man ikke passer på.
Derfor står jeg op, går i bad, vasker hår, det som alle gør. Hvis man hver dag vasker håret, tørrer, styler, ordner make-up og tager tøj på på samme måde, inden man maler kaffebønner, varmer skummetmælk og smører sig en sesambagle med low-fat Kærgården, så behøver man faktisk ikke tænke. Man kan få hele morgenen til at flyde i en tankefri dvaletilstand.
Jeg tager altid metroen på arbejde.
Der er sandsynligvis en anden måde at komme derhen, måske endda hurtigere, men jeg ved, at hvis jeg går ud ad døren præcis kl. 08.06, så er jeg fremme kl. 08.24. De resterende 6 minutter bruger jeg på at hænge overtøjet på plads, skifte støvlerne ud med sko (vinter) tjekke for svedpletter (sommer) og rette make-up.
Så er det endnu en ting jeg slipper for at tænke på.
På min IPod har jeg hvalsang. Jeg har prøvet meget andet; stammemusik, en slags arytmiske trommer der fik mig til at gå som om jeg var halt i et forsøg på at gå i takt, Celine Dionhits på panfløjte, oplæsning af keltiske digte ved Sean Connery, lyden af regn (måtte stå at på Nørreport station og løbe op til regionalsporet for at tisse). Hvalsang er godt for mig. Så er min hjerne pacificeret.
Kl. 08.30 sætter jeg mig på min stol på kontoret – Pandérup & Partners, højt estimeret advokatfirma. Jeg er advokatsekretær i 3. led, dvs. den der gennemgår posten og skriver retursvar, - der har jeg let nok ved at holde tankerne på plads. Vi er nemlig bemandet sådan, at alle skal knokle for lige akkurat at kunne nå det hele. Det er åbenbart en strategi der ofte bruges i advokatkredse.
De andre advokatsekretærer ser ned på mig, fordi de er yngre, har været ansat kortere tid og alligevel har givet mig karrierebaghjul. Så taler de højt og betydningsfuldt om sager, jeg ikke har kendskab til. Som jeg ikke burde have kendskab til, men da alle breve går gennem mig, ved jeg alt, hvad der sker. De breve, der er mærket fortroligt, skal egentlig sorteres fra og afleveres direkte til rette vedkommende.
Enten lirker jeg dem op, det er ikke særlig svært, især ikke hvis de er sendt i dyre konvolutter, det stive, fine papir nærmest springer op, hvis bare man har en skarp brevåbner og lidt træning. Eller også damper jeg dem op. Med god samvittighed.
Det er faktisk receptionisten der skal sortere brevene, men Lizet og jeg er bedste veninder, jeg kender hende ud og ind, vi ved alt om hinanden. Det vil sige, jeg ved alt om hende og hun aner intet om mig fra før. Hun tror vist, at jeg har en eller anden form for blokering men sandheden er den, at jeg bare er holdt op med at tænke på fortiden. Simpelt simpelthen.
Lizet smider altid det hele forbi mit skrivebord.
Lizet går til thighburner og stomachcrunch mandag og tirsdag. Onsdag tager hun sol, får ordnet negle og bliver vokset. Det gør jeg også. Det er faktisk utrolig meget lettere at få andre til at organisere ens tid. Man slipper for så meget stillingtagen.
Engang hed Lizet Lisbeth. Men som Lisbeth ville hun aldrig kunne udfolde sine lysende vingers energi. Lisbeth ville forblive inde i pubben. Nu er hun Lizet, nu er hendes potentiale uendeligt som universet. Blomsten har åbnet sig. Sommerfuglen flyver.
Jeg har selv tænkt på at ændre mit navn. Til Violetta måske. Eller Bolethéa. Men jeg må forblive Lisa Hannesen, kun Lisa Hannesen kan blive fundet. Anerkendt. Og afsløret
Translation - English
CHAPTER 1
Everyday I see faces.
They are everywhere. The streets, the metro and the cafés are full of them. I try not to think
about how old mine would be. But I’m just too damned good at numbers.
When I am standing there, in the street/at the gym/in cafés, and a face kindly asks if I want to
save the world’s starving and perishing children/if I want to try buttrobics/if my latte should be
skinny, it still always gets to me that it could be the face on my person. That person that I have
had inside my tummy.
I never got to see who it was. I only heard the policewoman satisfactorily declare that it was a
girl.
- She is absolutely perfect. Thank you.
And then she took my girl and left. I was left alone to give birth to the placenta. But I never think
about that anymore.
***
I always wake with a start on my birthday. Like someone who has been swimming under water
for too long and sticks their head up, gasping for air. I’ll be 34.
So I am double as old as I was when I was seventeen and the policewoman took my daughter,
whilst my parents and little sister were waiting at home with breakfast.
I must get up. Up and get going. Got to have things happening on my birthday. All the corners
must be completely filled out. If it’s really crammed full, from morning til midnight, a lengthy
time can lapse, even several minutes, when I don’t think about that time seventeen years ago.
My day is tightly packed in. All the bits knock against each other like an advent calendar, with
all the presents hanging closely together on a string.
Not just today, but every day. It’s the easiest way to organize yourself. That way, you always know what you will do when with who. So there are no surprises. You can get your life destroyed by surprises if you’re not careful.
I get up, have a shower, wash my hair, just like everybody else does. If every day you wash, dry
and style your hair, put on make-up and get dressed in the same way before you grind the coffee
beans, warm the skimmed milk and butter a sesame bagel with low fat margarine, you don’t
actually have to think. You can get the whole morning to pass in a thoughtless trance.
I always take the metro to work.
There is doubtless another way to get there, probably even faster, but I know that if I go out of
the door at precisely 8.06 am, then I will be there at 8.24 am. I use the remaining 6 minutes to
hang up my coat, change from boots into shoes (winter), check for sweat patches (summer) and
re-apply make-up.
One more thing I don’t have to think about.
I have whale music on my ipod. I have tried other lots of other kinds - tribal music, a sort of
arythmic drumming that made me look as if I was trying to limp in time to the music, Celine
Dion hits on panpipes, Sean Connery reading Celtic poetry, sound of rainfall (I had to get off at
Nørreport station and run up to the regional platform to pee). Whale music works best for me. It
pacifies my brain.
At 8.30am I sit down on my chair at the office, Pandérup & Partners, a highly esteemed firm of
lawyers. I am a low ranking lawyer’s secretary. I go through the post and answer letters. It’s
pretty easy for me to distract my thoughts here as there are only just enough employees to cover
the day’s tasks if we work really hard. It is apparently a strategy often used by lawyers.
The other lawyer secretaries look down on me because they are younger, have been employed
here shorter time than me and have still managed to leave me behind on the career ladder. So
they talk loudly and meaningfully about cases that I don’t know anything about. Cases that I
shouldn’t know anything about, but when all the letters go through me, I know everything that
happens. Letters that are marked confidential are supposed to be sorted out and delivered directly
to the appropriate recipient.
I either pry them open, which isn’t very hard, especially if they are sent in expensive envelopes.
All you need is a sharp letter opener and a little training and the stiff, fine paper almost jumps
open at you. Otherwise I steam them open. With a good conscience.
It’s really the receptionist’s job to sort out the letters, but Lizet and I are best friends. I know her inside out and we know everything about each other. That is, I know everything about her and she knows nothing about me from before. She probably thinks that I have some kind of blockage, but the truth is that I have just stopped thinking about the past. Quite simply simple.
Lizet always chucks the whole lot on my desk.
Lizet goes to thighburner and stomachcrunch on Mondays and Tuesdays. On Wednesdays she goes to the solarium, gets her nails done and gets a wax. I do too. It is actually unbelievably so much easier to get others to organize your time. You get out of so much decision making.
Once Lizet was Lisbeth. But as Lisbeth she would never be able to unfold the energy in her shining wings. Lisbeth always wanted to stay in the pub. Now she is Lizet and now her potential is as infinite as the universe. The flower has bloomed. The butterfly is flying.
I have also considered changing my name. Maybe to Violetta. Or Belethéa. But I must remain Lisa Hannesen. Only Lisa Hannesen can be found. Recognized. And exposed.
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Years of experience: 27. Registered at ProZ.com: Aug 2005.
I am British and have been living and working in Denmark for about 12 years and speak and write Danish fluently.
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