Funny translations

I follow the clinic that helped me get my little darlings and the text in their posts is never in any language I can understand, only the local language, which is quite tricky for me who is only familiar with some of the most common European languages.

When I use the translator, I always get something funny because the difference between that language and Swedish is considerable.

“(Untranslated word) children born with artificial fertilizer are born to be born.” (Yes!)

“Children who show up with play aren’t any different from hard children.”

Finally, their slogan, it seems: “We take care of your health and your fruit!”

I’m wondering if maybe my son is a banana (or a dragonfruit?) and my daughter an apple? (or maybe a Pepper?) LOL.

40 odd things about me

I found this on Facebook and I thought I’d do it here:

1. Do you put ketchup on hot dogs? No (I don’t eat hot dogs, not even vegan ones).
2. Choice of soda? A Swedish favorite – Loka Crush Strawberry.
3. Do you put salt on your watermelon? No, because I don’t eat watermelons or any other kind.
4. Can you swim? Yes.
5. Hot dogs or burgers? Vegan burgers.
6. Favorite food? Salad.
7. Do you believe in ghosts? I don’t know, I’m not sure.
8. What do you drink in the morning? Flavored black tea (strawberry).
9. Can you do 100 push ups? Haha, no.
10. Summer, Winter, Spring, or Fall? Spring (used to be Summer, when I was a child)
11. Your favorite Pet? Just one? Oh, ok. I guess I’ll say dog but I really love most animals.
12. Tattoos? No.
13. Do you wear glasses? Yes.
14. Do you have a phobia? Yes.
15. Do you have a nickname? Not really.
16. Three favorite animals? Dogs, cats, and rabbits (or guinea pigs, or cockatiels).
17. Biggest downfall? I have really bad luck.
18. Rain or Snow? If I have to choose, rain, but I don’t like either one of them. I like partly cloudy and around fifteen to eighteen degrees (C).
19. Can you change a tire? No.
20. Favorite flower? Forgetmenots, Apple blossoms
21. Can you drive a stick? I don’t know what that is, so I guess not.
22. Ever gone sky diving? Haha, no.
23. Kids? Yes, two.
24. Favorite color? Blue or green.
25. Favorite movie? Really tough to choose, but I’ll say LOTR.
26. Can you whistle? Yes.
27. Where were you born ? Just outside Gothenburg, Sweden.
28. Siblings? 1 sister, 1 brother.
29. Surgeries? A C-section.
30. Shower or bath? Shower.
31. Last song you heard? I don’t know. The children listen to all kinds of things, but I can’t find the title.
32. Broken bones? No.
33. How many TV’s in your home? Right now, none. Back in a cabin in the woods, one.
34. Worst pain? I’d rather not say.
35. Do you like to sing ? No.
36. Are your parents still alive? My mother.
37. Do you like camping? I’ve only just started, so I’m not sure yet, but maybe.
38. What do you binge watch? Either cop series, historic series or science fiction.
39. Pumpkin or pecan pie? Pecan, though I’m not sure I’ve had either.
40. A photo of yourself. Sort of. 🙂

Movie: Suffragette 2015

The other day, my sister and I watched a movie called Suffragette, which, obviously, was about women’s struggle to get the right to vote in England. I already knew the basics, but this movie followed working class women’s fight. It was a bit different from that of the wealthier women. Even though I knew it would be a sad movie, the ending was brutal. I knew what was coming but despite that, it felt like a shock, as it would have been for the young woman who was present at the crucial moment. Most people probably know what I’m referring to, but I’ll try not to ‘spoil’ the ending.

The movie follows a young married woman who works at a laundry. Apparently, back then it was a very hard, and unhealthy job. Most washerwomen didn’t live for very long. Maud Watts (who is a character that symbolizes many of those working class women), is married and has a little boy. Her husband seems quite nice, but that changes when he finds out that she’s been pulled into the women’s suffrage movement. It starts when a woman who works at the same laundry, asks her to come along when she is going to testify before a group of politicians, about the hard work these women are forced to do, for very little pay. The friend turns out to have been beaten (I missed why – an abusive boyfriend or the police in a confrontation during a demo?). She won’t be taken seriously, looking like that, so Maud has to take her place and instead of reading a written testimony, she’s asked about her own situation. That actually turns out quite well, but in the end, the politicians vote against women’s right to vote.

The group around the Pankhurst family decide to turn to more violent means of demonstrating, like blowing up mail boxes. By then, it’s obvious that Maud’s husband has had enough. He doesn’t want his wife to be involved in anything like that. He seems to be a very conservative, patriotic man who forces his little son to say goodnight to a portrait of the king, every night. Eventually, Maud is thrown out of her home and isn’t allowed to take her son with her. After a time in jail, for merely being present at a protest, she also can’t find anywhere to live. The organisation lets her sleep in a church. Eventually, something even more tragic happens, but I won’t go into that.

Maud’s friend has a twelve-year-old daughter, who turns out to be sexually abused by the laundry owner. The same thing happened to Maud for years, so she’s extremely traumatized by the discovery. I will risk spoiling one thing: Maud finds a way to help that girl away from the laundry towards the end of the movie. That’s about the only hopeful thing that happens in the movie. It’s set in 1912, and the first time some women got to vote in the UK was in 1918. At least the movie ends when the movement is being taken seriously (earlier most members of the general public didn’t know about it).

These days, when there’s usually very little to choose between in the elections, it’s easy to start thinking, maybe I won’t vote this year. When you consider the sacrifices women in the past have made for us, so we can have the right to vote, it would be ungrateful not to use that right. Even to vote blank. If there’s nothing good to vote for, then vote anyway, that’s what I’m thinking, to honor all those sacrifices. I understand some people died from forcefeeding, (perhaps not women – I couldn’t find that on Wikipedia, but a man in Ireland), so clearly that was risky as well as humiliating.

 

 

 

That’s better

I would like to thank Themis Athena, for helping me out with my problems with the editor. At the moment, I will be able to blog here after all. 🙂

Calamity Under the Chandelier by Camilla Blythe

I just read this book. Normally, I get my freebies from Amazon (or Smashwords or Gutenberg or from the author newsletters I subscribe to. This time it wasn’t available from any of those sites. It was Google Play. I have never used that before so I had no idea what to expect. Since I don’t own an e-book reader like Kobo, that reads epub, and my phone isn’t working, I ended up having to read it on my computer. It was – different. Not nearly as good as reading on something handheld, but since I wasn’t in a position to complain, it was great to be able to read at all.

Now I must mention a few words about the actual book. At first I didn’t know what to expect, but after a while I got into it and it was quite good. I liked the main character, Cora. There were a number of other interesting characters. Unfortunately, one of the ones I liked, didn’t make it to the end. All in all, it was a good read.

This is what Google Play had to say about the plot:

Hollywood starlets are supposed to be happily on set in sunny California, and not trapped in drafty manor houses during ferocious snowstorms.

But after Cora Clarke’s best friend and fellow actress elopes with an English earl, Cora visits England to help her friend brave the aristocratic disapproval of her new husband’s family.

Unfortunately, the holiday turns nightmarish when a chandelier crashes down and kills somebody. When suspicion falls on her friend, Cora vows to figure out the identity of the murderer. After all, blizzards have a habit of preventing the police from arriving, and body counts have a dreadful habit of growing.

My older reviews

I would just like to tell my followers from Booklikes, that I most likely won’t be able to transfer my older reviews from Booklikes and put them here. I can’t access my Booklikes acount at all. I don’t even get an error message, I simply don’t get logged in. On the other hand, the homepage still seems to be up, so I guess it’s always possible to see the reviews on my actual Booklikes homepage. Besides I used to crosspost to Dreamwidth, so most of my reviews should be there.

Also, for all my Booklikes followers (and anyone else who might be interested), you don’t need an account on Dreamwidth to see the journal and my settings allow anonymous comments. There are no likes though. LOL. It’s not Facebook.

I am on Facebook and Instagram and I have posted a few book images on the latter site but it’s hardly worth following for those who are interested in books. I won’t link to them here, but if anyone wanted to friend me I would accept your request. (But you’d have to ask me to find me there.)

I’m also considering my book catalog. Since Booklikes was my main book blog, I didn’t always bother to add books to the other sites, but I think that LibraryThing is mostly up to date when it comes to that. It’s been ages since I added anything to Goodreads. I’ll have to start using LibraryThing more seriously now. It’s just not nearly as fun as Booklikes.

Meme – questions

Do you have a tattoo or are you pierced? My ears are pierced.
Are you married? No, unfortunately not.
Do you have kids? Yes, two. Twins.
Do you have grandchildren? Haha, no.
Do you have nieces/nephews? Yes, two nieces. Twins too.
Have you had surgery? Yes, I’ve had a C-section.
Have you had a fracture? No.
Have you fired a gun? Unfortunately not. I’d love to try it. (As a sport – target shooting.)
Handed in your notice at work? No.
Been on a plane? A couple of times.
Cut classes? Yes.
Have you been taken to hospital in an ambulance? No.
Do you have or have you had pets? Yes.
Have you gone parachuting? No.
Have you done any downhill skiing? No.
Have you done some horse riding? Yes. I took riding lessons for a few years as a child.
Have you been in a hot air balloon? No.
Have you donated blood? No.
Have you been in the backseat of a police car? No.
Have you been in a fight? Yes, with my sister when we were children.
Have you flown in a helicopter? No.
Have you knitted a jumper or sweater? Yes.
Have you been on TV? Yes.
Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? No, I don’t drive.

Language whining

I just read about how many languages have adopted English words and expressions directly. I won’t try to give examples from other languages because obviously I can’t be sure about that, it’s for the native speakers to say. However, now I will whine a bit about how Swedish is being infiltrated by several English words. Take it or leave it. LOL.

Kids nowadays say ’betta’ (to bet) instead of ’slå vad’ which actually means ’make a bet’. They also say ’fuck’ but not only as a swear word like ’damn’ but also in the sense of ’fucking up’ but they have partially made it Swedish by saying ”fucka upp”. Unfortunately, they also say ’faila’ for failing, instead of ’misslyckas’ as it’s really called. Also, ’najs’/’nice’ for nice when it’s supposed to be ’trevligt’. And ’sorry’ instead of ’ursäkta’ or ’förlåt’. Cash instead of ’kontant’ etc. I also happen to know that they use many other direct translations from expressions in English that sound completely stupid in Swedish. For instance the real expression for someone who has successfully managed to get slim after a diet is ’gå ner i vikt’ which means ’go down in weight’ but nowadays everyone says ’tappa vikt’ which means ’lose weight’ like in English (or really drop a weight when you’re working out). They seem to take some kind of perverse pleasure in killing our language. They also ’spenderar’ money instead of ’slösar’ or ’använder’ their money (or their time) on something or other or doing something or other. There was once a funny expression that said that someone had their ’spending pants’ on. (’Spenderbyxorna’). It wasn’t really in my active vocabulary because it was an old fashioned expression, but I knew it from older books. Someone even said (probably having no idea how much it annoyed me) that she liked to say that she was frying dinner for her family, directly taken from the English expression but mangled into ’fraiar’/’fryar’ pronounced like Friar (well, almost). There are other expressions of different kinds, but I guess this has bored you enough.

Needless to say I’m not pleased with this development but clearly no one cares what I think. LOL. There are of course other ways they ruin our language like making up new words from actual Swedish words but again, I think this is enough to show you what I’m going through. 🙂 They even pronounce the English words badly. I’m being sorely tried. LOL.

Ten questions

1. Have you ever finished a book out of spite? Like you weren’t enjoying it, but you were determined not to let it beat you?

No. Why would I do that? Weird question.

2. Do you prefer ebooks, physical books or audiobooks? Why?

Physical books, but I don’t mind ebooks either. However, I would be bored out of my mind trying to listen to the slow audiobooks.

3. What’s the longest book you have read?

Maybe the LOTR (in one big book).

4. What’s the shortest book?

No idea. Though The man who planted trees by Jean Giono. (although in Swedish) was quite short.

5. Do you read more than one book simultaneously? Why or why not? If so, what’s the greatest amount of books you have read at the same time?

I used to do that a lot, when I was a teen. Like a children’s book, one for grown ups, one non-fiction book, maybe a comic book too. And possibly one book in Swedish, one in English.

6. Have you ever attempted to read a book that is not in your native language? (both English and non-English speakers can answer) If so, how did it go?

Yes. I learned how to read when I was about three. So for about six-seven years, I only read books in Swedish. Then when I started learning English (at nine) I became interested in reading books in English. When I was about ten I got some simple books in English that my mom ordered for me. From then on I began to read more and more in English. Finally, after I graduated high school, I began to work on my French and that led to buying a number of books in French. Now I read about one book a year in French.

It’s a series of historic mysteries (Nicholas LeFlochby a French historian and philosopher (Jean-François Parot). I’m on book 14. Unfortunately there are no more books in that series so I’m not sure what I’ll do next about my French.

At the moment I’m trying to get into reading books in German. I think I can do it, but it’s been a while since I worked so hard on French and German is a bit harder.

7. Do you prefer to borrow books from the library or buy them at a bookshop?

I prefer buying my books. For a while I would borrow ebooks at the library but for a few years now, it’s been virtually impossible (some trouble with the copyright) so I don’t anymore. I do what I used to do as a kid: I take the plunge based on the blurb.

8. Have you ever bought a book from an online store?

All the time. To support the really great local book store, I also buy a few copies of books over the counter, but mainly what books I read come from online sources.

9. Is there one genre or style of book that you will never read?

Biographies, horror books (with a few exceptions), romances (but I will read historic romances), erotic fiction (but I have read a lot of slash online).

10. When you come across typos in your reading, does it bother you?

Yes. Pretty much all ebooks have them. Even the ones from ”big” publishers. They don’t seem to bother.

Bookish questions

I shamelessly stole these questions on Tumblr.

1. What is your favourite genre and why?

I can’t really choose one, so I’ll say cosy mysteries and fantasy in no particular order, but I also have many other favorites.

2. How did you get into booklr?

I discovered Tumblr as a media blog and got myself a photo blog, but realized that it could be used as a text based blog as well. When Booklikes went down, I decided to get a Booklr. I love the fact that it doesn’t display ads on the actual blog, like WordPress.com does.

3. Can you remember the first novel you read, and what you loved about it?

Haha. No. I read children’s books before I read novels and I’ve been reading since I was three and a half or four so it’s not easy to remember.

4. Who are some of your favourite children’s authors?

Diana Wynne Jones, Ingelin Angerborn (who is a Swedish author) and several others.

5. What are some classics you love and ones you hate?

I love Jane Austen’s books, some of Charles Dickens’ books, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books. I hated Crime and Punishment.

6. What is your favourite read of the year so far?

I have actually read so many nice freebies that I’m really happy about it. My big surprise was a ’paranormal mystery’ called Bottling It. I’ve never liked that sort of thing, but now I do. 🙂

7. Do you read/write fanfiction?

Yes, or at least I used to. First when I discovered fan fiction I read a lot, then tried writing it for a long time. Now I do neither, but I feel I might get back to it when I can. I’m so busy I don’t write original fiction either at the moment.

8. What are your reading goals for the rest of the year? And next year?

Just trying to have fun, finding good books to read so I can relax. No particular numbers or anything.

9. What are some book to film/tv adaptations you love? And why?

Some of the ones based on Jane Austen’s books. I didn’t like Sanditon but I have liked all the others, I think.

10. Is there a book that lots of people rec that you just instinctively know you would hate to read?

The Hunger Games, Twilight, Game of Thrones, anything horror… I have a different taste in books than most other people, I think.

These too, came from the same place:

1. How has your quarantine been?

As good as can be expected. I’m not an outgoing person. Even at the best of times, I tend to stay at home and only go for walks and do a bit of shopping (groceries).

2. Biggest pet peeves (in general)?

Bad spelling and grammar, aggressive prejudices, trolls, people who don’t believe in science…

3. What book(s) are you reading right now?

I’m about to start reading all the books by L. Frank Baum about the Land of Oz (except for the first book in the series, which I recently read).

4. What’s your favourite thing about bookblr? (My comment: is that how you spell it? I thought it was booklr. Oh, well.)

It’s a cute, easy-to-use blog where most people post cute photos as well as text.

5. How are your yearly goals looking?

Haha. The Corona virus put a hold on all those. I didn’t have any reading-related goals. I was hoping to write a bit, but I have hardly been able to. Nothing substantial anyway.

6. What’s a curious thing about you/your personality/your life?

I’m allergic to garlic. Seriously. It’s not just that I don’t like it, I get a rash from it. A rash that hurts.

7. If you could be an animal, which one would you choose?

Well, I used to think the usual – cat, dolphin etc, but came to the conclusion that I’m probably a wild donkey. Independent and wild. I won’t let other people force me to do or think anything I don’t want to.

8. Rec me a book!

Bottling It by A. A. Albright.

9. How many languages do you speak?

Swedish, English and French. I also know a little German, Spanish and Italian.

10. Tell me a childhood memory.

A book related one? Ok. My mom was at a meeting at work. My sister was asleep but my dad and I were awake. He promised he’d read to me if I was awake when he’d finished his book. Of course I was awake… That pissed him off and he said: you did it on purpose so I won’t read to you. I was pissed off too…