02.03.2009 08:29 - One Week!!
One, teeny, weeny week before I get up on-stage at Nightwash!!
I've got the act translated, but not quite "right". One of the problems of doing comedy in a foreign language is that you don't hear the "music" of the language. For example, in English, words with hard consonants are funnier than those without. Anything with a "K" in it, for example. Not being that deep into the german language, I can't refine the word-choice enough to sharpen the intrinsic wit behind the jokes.
It's quite hard to translate humour between languages. There's a whole class of jokes which work in English, but won't work in German, due to them being a play on meanings. The classic "My dog's got no nose. How does he smell? Terrible!" joke, for example. German differentiates between smelling, and giving off a smell - "riechen" und "stinken". So that one's out of the window, for a start.
Fortunately, I was fairly careful to write so that anything that would give translation problems was right out of the way. The only main problem is the section in the clone helpdesk routine where the helpdesk agent misunderstands Darth Vader :
T: You did have them insured, didn't you?
S: I realise you’re an Evil Empire,
P: all I’m saying is it would have been prudent to insure them.
S: I’m sorry.. sorry…..I'm afraid I can't help you. Good day!
P: oh yeah? I hope they force it up you too, buddy!
Becomes
T: ..Sind Sie versichert?
S: Ich weiß, dass Sie ein Böser Herrscher sind, aber,
P: es wäre klug gewesen, versichert zu sein.
S: es tut mir Leid, aber ich können sie nicht helfen.
S: Ja, ja, ich bin Sicher die Macht ist mit dir auch...
P: aber die Versicherung nicht.
So, there you have it.
March 9th. Eco Waschsalon, Höninger weg, over from the Herthastr. Haltestelle.
Or watch the live stream at http://www.nightwash.de
