nornen:
Well, I am a non-native English speaker. From a Spanish speaking point of view, from a German speaking point of view and from a Q'eqchi' speaking point of view, it looks to me quite intelligible. But hey, it was I who translated it.

You may not be a native English speaker, but every indication is that you're a fluent one. If anything, your English seems as good or better than most native speakers.

So if you were translating that dialogue for actual publication, is that how you would choose to translate it?

Mi konas kelkajn metalrokgrupojn inkl. Sabaton. Ilia muzika stilo estas, hmm, tro kliŝa por mi.

"Tyly" means (looked up in some online dictionaries) harsh, dour, brusque, gruff.

Literally "pahka" means burl, narl, wart in a tree, but there is an adverbial idiom of "päätä pahkaa" (no idea what "pahka" means here, the idiom is so old), which means straight away, without thinking in advance.

By putting these together the word "Tylypahka" raises a mental image of a harsh place where you go without much thinking about it (and of which you later quite likely have second thoughts). AFAIK this duplicates quite well the feeling you get from that place once you read more about it.

I agree with Nornen. You need to be quite versed in English literature to know Charles Dickens and his A Christmas Carol. For most people he and his works are unknown. You will be surprised how many things you think are international and "everybody knows", are actually known by few and mostly in your country.

I think Scrooge MacDuck is "Roope-setä" (Roope : local variant from Robert (chosen because of a reference to a local song from the year 1931); "setä" : onklo) here, so practically nobody knows about that reference.

Metsis:Mi konas kelkajn metalrokgrupojn inkl. Sabaton. Ilia muzika stilo estas, hmm, tro kliŝa por mi.

Tio estas bedaŭrinda. Mi vidis ilin antaŭ du jaroj, kaj ili estis imponega. Mi tre ŝatas ilian muzikon.

Metsis:"Tyly" means (looked up in some online dictionaries) harsh, dour, brusque, gruff.

Literally "pahka" means burl, narl, wart in a tree, but there is an adverbial idiom of "päätä pahkaa" (no idea what "pahka" means here, the idiom is so old), which means straight away, without thinking in advance.

By putting these together the word "Tylypahka" raises a mental image of a harsh place where you go without much thinking about it (and of which you later quite likely have second thoughts). AFAIK this duplicates quite well the feeling you get from that place once you read more about it.

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation.

Personally I don't really like localizations, especially when they're very obvious. For instance, recently I was watching the Korean movie Parasite. At one point one of the cops starts talking about "Miranda rights" [in the English subtitles]. If you don't know what that is, it's when American cops tell someone as they arrest them, "You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney" etc.

So there's this Korean cop who is saying "You have the right to remain silent" and so on, and then his partner comes in and goes, "Did you do the Miranda thing?" And it all felt very inauthentic because I knew that in Korea, while there may be some approximation of Miranda rights, there was no way they called it that and they don't say the exact same thing when they arrest someone as they do in America.

Metsis:I agree with Nornen. You need to be quite versed in English literature to know Charles Dickens and his A Christmas Carol. For most people he and his works are unknown. You will be surprised how many things you think are international and "everybody knows", are actually known by few and mostly in your country.

I guess I tend to think of Dickens are only a couple of steps behind Shakespeare in terms of notoriety, and I know that Shakespeare definitely is known the world over and his work has been translated into damn near every language known to man.

And I feel confident that A Christmas Carol is Dickens' best known work, especially considering that it has been adapted into a great many live-action films, animated films, theatrical productions, radio plays, operas, ballets, and even a few graphic novels. I know that I first got exposed to the story as a wee lad via Disney's "Mickey's Christmas Carol." I have since read the book, seen several of the movies and watched three stage adaptations. It's a great story. It really does surprise me that it's not well-known in non-English-speaking countries.

I guess I tend to think of Dickens are only a couple of steps behind Shakespeare in terms of notoriety, and I know that Shakespeare definitely is known the world over and his work has been translated into damn near every language known to man.

But what does "Shakespeare is known the world over" actually mean?

True, in Germany and Guatemala many people will guess the name of Shakespeare when in a cross-word puzzle they find: 16 across: Famous British Author 11 letters, but that's about it. OK, maybe Romeo and Juliet come into mind but that will in most cases be all.

I will make the experiment myself. Lo and behold, this is all I know about Shakespeare without using google:
William Shakespeare, born in Stratford upon Avon. XIXth century, maybe XVIIIth. Wrote anachronistic English even for his own time. Playwright.
"Hamlet": The prince of Denmark has some daddy issues with his dead father. Speaks to skulls.
"Romeo and Juliet": Young couple whose parents don't agree with their relationship. Lass fakes suicide. Lad sees it and commits actual suicide. Lass wakes up, sees that her lover is dead and commits suicide, too. Everybody dead.
"Othello": Some black fellow. Not sure, whether there is an eponymous play or if he is a character in some other.
Quotes:
"There is something rotten in the state of Denmark."
"What art thou that usurpst this time of night, heaven, I charge thee, speak!"
"To be or not to be"

That's all.

- - - -

Let's make the counter experiment: On which literary work is this movie clip based?

nornen:

I guess I tend to think of Dickens are only a couple of steps behind Shakespeare in terms of notoriety, and I know that Shakespeare definitely is known the world over and his work has been translated into damn near every language known to man.

But what does "Shakespeare is known the world over" actually mean?

True, in Germany and Guatemala many people will guess the name of Shakespeare when in a cross-word puzzle they find: 16 across: Famous British Author 11 letters, but that's about it. OK, maybe Romeo and Juliet come into mind but that will in most cases be all.

I will make the experiment myself. Lo and behold, this is all I know about Shakespeare without using google:
William Shakespeare, born in Stratford upon Avon. XIXth century, maybe XVIIIth. Wrote anachronistic English even for his own time. Playwright.
"Hamlet": The prince of Denmark has some daddy issues with his dead father. Speaks to skulls.
"Romeo and Juliet": Young couple whose parents don't agree with their relationship. Lass fakes suicide. Lad sees it and commits actual suicide. Lass wakes up, sees that her lover is dead and commits suicide, too. Everybody dead.
"Othello": Some black fellow. Not sure, whether there is an eponymous play or if he is a character in some other.
Quotes:
"There is something rotten in the state of Denmark."
"What art thou that usurpst this time of night, heaven, I charge thee, speak!"
"To be or not to be"

That's all.

LOL, well I'd say that's a lot to know about him. Certainly most Americans would not be able to recite all that from memory.

But, at least here in the States, I'd say everyone in high school reads at least one Shakespeare play, most likely Romeo & Juliet or Hamlet.

Romeo & Juliet is well-known enough, if not in the details then at least in the basic storyline, to be almost archetypal. Any story of "star-crossed lovers" who desire each other but whose prospects at happiness are actually doomed will conjure up a thought of Romeo & Juliet. Plus, you had the big movie in the 90s with Leo DiCaprio, and I KNOW that a lot of people outside of English-speaking countries have seen that one. It made $100 million internationally at the box office, and then you have rentals, TV airings, etc.

Similarly, I would think that a great number of people internationally would have at least seen one of the movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol even if they had never read the book. And if not even that, then at least one of the TV episodes that riffed on the story. Like Romeo & Juliet, I think of Scrooge as an archetypal Christmas figure -- that of the hard-hearted miser whose transformation is symbolic of the power of Christmas and, more generally, of Christianity (being that ultimately Christmas is a Christian holiday, and A Christmas Carol is ultimately a Christian tale of redemption, even if it's not overtly religious).

nornen:Let's make the counter experiment: On which literary work is this movie clip based?

Literary work?

Hmm. None that I know of. I only know that's Fantasia and the clip is from the segment known as The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

PrimeMinisterK:

nornen:Let's make the counter experiment: On which literary work is this movie clip based?

Literary work?

Hmm. None that I know of. I only know that's Fantasia and the clip is from the segment known as The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

The literary work is "Der Zauberlehrling" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Now I could go full-german and ask how is it possible that a reference to one of the greatest German Writers (he wrote Faust and Werther) is lost in America, the same way the reference to Dickens is lost with Scrooge MacDuck in Finnland, Germany and Guatemala.

You see our world-famous artists aren't that famous after all as soon as you cross a frontier.

nornen:
The literary work is "Der Zauberlehrling" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Now I could go full-german and ask how is it possible that a reference to one of the greatest German Writers (he wrote Faust and Werther) is lost in America, the same way the reference to Dickens is lost with Scrooge MacDuck in Finnland, Germany and Guatemala.

You see our world-famous artists aren't that famous after all as soon as you cross a frontier.

Just looked it up. So it's a poem.

I take your point, but you'll have to excuse me if I push back on it. If I look at the Wikipedia page for A Christmas Carol adaptations, I see listed:

19 live-action films
7 animated films
24 live-action television adaptations
9 animated television adaptations
26 radio adaptations
13 audio recordings
4 operas
2 ballets
. . .and too many stage productions to count.

As I'm sure you're aware, American and British films alike have a way of making their way around the world. I'll also point out that at least two of the adaptations are Disney productions: One is Mickey's Christmas Carol, and Mickey is an internationally-known figure. And the other is a 2009 animated version with Jim Carrey, which brought in $187 million of its revenue through international theaters.

You left out one very important interpretation.

This reminds me, that every christmas my mother read to us children "The Little Match Girl" (Den lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) by Hans Christian Anderson. It goes more or less in the same direction as A Christmas Charol. Check it out, I think it's awesome.
Every time she read it, I cried like a (fill in the name of some animal which is famous for crying really hard).

nornen:You left out one very important interpretation.

F'n LOL! That's hilarious.

I've seen a lot of those, but somewhat I never did see that one.

nornen:This reminds me, that every christmas my mother read to us children "The Little Match Girl" (Den lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) by Hans Christian Anderson. It goes more or less in the same direction as A Christmas Charol. Check it out, I think it's awesome.
Every time she read it, I cried like a (fill in the name of some animal which is famous for crying really hard).

That sounds like the kind of thing that I would find interesting. I'll have to check it out.

I actually love the Christmas holiday. I always have, ever since I was a kid. I'm actually mildly disappointed that A Christmas Carol has already been translated into Eo, because if it hadn't been then that is definitely something I would've wanted to attempt one day.