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Hi everyone.
I’m trying to translate this lyric, hopefully you can tell me if I’m correct or what would be better!
The lyric is:
“I fell in love with a dead boy
Oh, such a beautiful boy”
I’ve translated this to:
“Я влюбился в мертвого мальчика
О, такой красивый мальчик”
Thanks
The translation is correct if the person who says this is male.
Otherwise, it should be «Я влюбилась…».
Well, there is really a little problem in russian language with this lyrics. With help of google I found that we are talking about song of band "Antony And The Johnsons". Singer is trangender and lyrics contain line "Are you a boy or are you a girl?".
So, to make correct translation to russian we really need to choose which gender we are talking from and use corresponding endings of words.
Also, "boy" must be translated as "парень" (guy) - "я влюбилась в мёртвого парня", imho, to avoid pedophilia connotations (addressing male as 'boy' has joking or derogatory meanings in most of cases in russian).
Thank you both, I’m glad to see that I was almost correct!
You are right that it it a lyric from Antony and the Johnsons (a great band by the way).
To give some context, I’m writing a short story/long poem about a man that was abused as a child, and as a result hated himself and his body but didn’t know why. When he discovers the truth, he sees the sad, abused boy that he was as a child, but rather than being hateful of the way he looked, sees this past self with love and compassion.
The boy isn’t actually dead, but the person that he was is dead, if that makes sense.
I’m not sure if that’ll change the translation much!
I guess changing it to “oh, he was such a beautiful boy - o, был таким красивым мальчиком” might make more sense?
I'm curious - why do you want to translate it to russian?
If you give me block of poem with full context I could try to translate it to russian with rythm and rhyme. I have some practice with little poems (in russian of course).
"o, он был таким красивым мальчиком" is ok
I try to give all of my stories titles in a language that feels appropriate and isn’t English.
For this story I wanted the title to be in Russian as there’s this perception in the West that Eastern Europe is cold and unfeeling, where the men only care about vodka, sausages, and bear fighting (obviously a massive exaggeration of a stereotype!).
I wanted to play with this softer emotive side that shows that there’s this younger child-self in everyone, even though they aren’t with us (‘dead’) we can still appreciate and nurture this past child by acknowledging it, especially when the child wasn’t cared for and can now be cared for by the adult person.
Basically a long way of saying “be the person you needed as a child”
So no rhyme I’m afraid!
Haha, I see. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Happyphantom
Well, I bet this line exists in some russian poems or song, but I don't remember any right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happyphantom
If you wrote about such things maybe you can use other time refrain of russian song "Wings" by russian band Nautilus Pompilius: "Where are your wings I loved so much?" / "Где твои крылья, которые нравились мне?" (lover says to lover). This line is well known in Russia. Just in case.