GC in French - is this OK?

[hazelholly]

Hi, I'm Hazel. Long-time reader, first-time poster. I'm currently learning to speak French, and I've decided that, in order to practise it, I will translate Gunnerkrigg Court. I'm still on The Shadow and The Robot (L'Ombre et Le Robot, in case you were wondering) and it's going well.

I'd love to be able to post it on my deviantART account, but I don't know if that's legal or whatever. I don't intend to make any profit of it, but I still want to see if it's okay. Do I need Tom's permission, or can I just go ahead and do it?

Thanks,

Hazel

[Mezzaphor]

If Tom doesn't come here to answer your question shortly, you can ask him via his Formspring account: www.formspring.me/gunnerkrigg

[legion]

Actually, I had that project of translating Gunnerkrigg Court into French :/

Except I'm a native French speaker. I actually made full transcript for Chapter 1, but didn't find time to photoshop it yet. I didn't want to talk about it before I had something concrete to show, but now I'm forced to step out of the shadows!

We could of course compare our translations, I could explain you grammar points, why this idiom is translated like that, and so on.

[hazelholly]

Mezzaphor - thanks, I'll try that.

legion - Oops! Sorry! I'm just doing a script, but I might try doing a comic version. I'm not very good at translating, and I had to use BabelFish for some parts (which, of course, is translating's equivalent of Boxbot), so yours is probably waaaaaaay better then mine. It could be fun... here's the first few pages:

Annie: Je m’appelle Antimony Carver. Je voudrais part avec vous les événements bizarre ce qui a eu lui pendant j’attends le collège a Gunnerkrigg Court
Titre : L’Ombre et Le Robot

Annie : Gunnerkrigg Court ne regarde pas tout comme un collège du tout. Ca plus ressemble un complexe industriel puis un lieu de l’étude. Dans la première semaine de m’attenance, j’ai commencé à noter un nombre de occurrences bizarre. Le plus répandu de ces singularités étant le fait que j'ai semblé avoir obtenu un ombre deuxième.

Annie : Parfois je verrais cette créature sautez de l’ombre a l’ombre, de temps à autre dissimulation dans cavités foncées de la Court. Il a faire difficile mes tentatives d’expliquez mon situation de les membres du corps enseignant, a mon non invité a semblé pour lancer à partir de l’attention. Plus souvent puis pas, cependant, ce spectre sinistre a assorti ma chaque étape. Une soirée, pendant l’étudies solitaire, j’ai décidé au confronter l’étant.

Annie : « Bonjour. Tu me comprendre ? »
Ombre2 : « Oui »
Annie : « Ce qui vous veulent de moi ? »
Ombre2 : « Aidez »
Annie : « Aidez ? »
Ombre2 : « Évasion »
Annie : « Vous voulez s’échapper ? Là où êtes vous essayant d’aller ? »

Annie : Apres davantage d’interrogation, je pouvais s’assurer cela mon nouveau ami, qui j'ai imaginativement intitulé « Ombre2 », ne pouvait pas exister n'importe où sans ombre. Il avait indiqué la forêt Gillitie, ce qui s’étend à travers un pont qui a enjambé les Eaux d’Annan. J'ai supposé que c'était sa maison. Malheureusement, le pont est garni des lumières puissantes qui éliminent n'importe quelle ombre, et est aussi de la longueur considérable.

That's pages 1 to 5.

[legion]

Yeah, that's, let's say we can see you're obviously a beginner, I think you wait to have a little more practice to do this translation; however, you could probably benefit from comparing the original text to my translation, which (I hope) is a good one.

Here's what I did for the same 5 pages:



Page 1 :
— Antimonie : Je m'appelle Antimonie Carver. Je voudrais vous faire part des évènement étranges qui ont eu lieu lors de mon séjour à l'école de…
— Titre : GUNNERKRIGG COURT
— Titre : Chapitre 1 : L'ombre et le robot
— Titre : Auteur : Tom Siddell
— Titre : Traducteur : Légion
— Commentaire de l'auteur : La première page.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Bienvenue à Gunnerkrigg Court.

Page 2 :
— Antimonie : Gunnerkrigg Court ne ressemble pas du tout à une école…
— Antimonie : On dirait plus une énorme zone industrielle qu'un lieu d'apprentissage.
— Antimonie : Dès la première semaine de mon séjour, j'ai remarqué un certain nombre de phénomènes étranges.
— Antimonie : La plus remarquable de ces bizarreries est que j'ai apparemment obtenu une deuxième ombre.
— Écriteau : NE COUREZ PAS
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Voici Antimonie.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Antimonie est l'héroïne de cette histoire.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Comme dans la plupart des autres écoles au Royaume Uni, tous les élèves doivent porter un uniforme à Gunnerkrigg Court.

Page 3 :
— Antimonie : Je voyais parfois cette créature sauter d'ombre en ombre.
— Antimonie : De temps en temps elle se cachait dans les coins sombres de la Cour.
— Antimonie : Il m'étais donc difficile de communiquer ma situation aux membres de l'établissement…
— Antimonie : Car mon passager clandestin tendait à fuir leur attention.
— Antimonie : Toutefois, la plupart du temps, ce spectre ténébreux me suivait fidèlement.
— Antimonie : Un soir, pendant l'étude individuelle
— Panneau : Étude
— Antimonie : J'ai décidé d'affronter cette créature.
— Lampe : Snap
— Commentaire du traducteur : l'anglais "the court" se traduit par le français "la cour" ; par convention dans ce comic, "la Cour" désigne donc Gunnerkrigg Court elle-même.

Page 4 :
— Antimonie : Bonsoir. Est-ce que tu me comprends ?
— Ombre 2 : OUI
— Antimonie : Qu'est-ce que tu veux de moi ?
— Ombre 2 : AIDE
— Antimonie : De l'aide ?
— Ombre 2 : PARTIR
— Antimonie : Tu veux partir ? Pour aller où ?
— Panneau : L'étude individuelle doit le rester.

Page 5 :
— Antimonie : Après d'autres questions, j'ai compris que mon nouvel ami,
— Antimonie : Que j'ai avec imagination appelé "Ombre 2",
— Antimonie : Ne pouvait vivre que dans la pénombre.
— Antimonie : Il avait pointé le Bois de Gillitie, qui se trouve de l'autre côté d'un pont qui traverse les Eaux d'Annan. Son foyer devait être là-bas.
— Antimonie : Ombre 2 était coincé ici depuis longtemps déjà.
— Antimonie : Malheureusement, de puissants réverbères éclairaient le pont et ne laissaient pas la moindre pénombre.
— Antimonie : Et le pont était très long.
— Légende : Bois de Gillitie.
— Légende : Eaux d'Annan.
— Légende : Gunnerkrigg Court.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Gunnerkrigg Court est un internat, ce qui explique pourquoi Antimonie est encore là de nuit.


There are many cases where I didn't translated literally, trying to preserve the pace of the original text and making the thing sound good in French. If you have any question about a particular point…

[chiparoo]

This is cool. Yay for hazelholly to use a great way to practice a language, and yay for legion for doing the translation and helping hazelholly out with her french

You guys have got a good thing going on here, keep it up.

[elthenstorm]

The main critic I have, if you allow me, is that this translation doesn't quite convey the original writing style, which in my opinion is one of the key elements of the atmosphere of the first few pages. "It closer resembles" doesn't quite convey the same flavour as "it rather looks like", does it? And a "large industrial complex" isn't quite a "huge industrial park". The same holds for a number of sentences in this script. Also at times you didn't respect the original tenses, resulting in a few grammar oddities as in the middle of the paragraph for page 5. And besides style, meaning is sometimes slightly off : "can you understand me?" means "est-ce que tu comprends ce que je dis ?" rather than "est-ce que tu me comprends ?" ("do you understand me?") which sounds somewhat like "can you relate to what I'm saying?". But I'm definitely being way nitpicky here.

Also I disagree with "Court" being translated as "Cour". As far as I know, the use of "cour" (as long as only architecture is concerned) is strictly restricted to a wall-enclosed open space. I wouldn't use it for a whole building or ensemble of buildings. But then again, my french is not that good.

That said, congratulations on your translation... your french seems thoroughly excellent. Keep in mind that I don't mean in any way to depreciate your work. I'm merely trying to be constructive. The insomnia-induced, headachey sort of constructive.

[TBeholder]

Speaking of comics translations' technical side:
How do you think, is it a good idea to use a transparent PNG? I mean, it may be placed on top, so that it changes only speech bubbles, and the rest of an image is the original one. Little to no size, easily changeable once set up and doesn't really involve copying and/or redistribution of anything but what's needed (translated script).

[nikita]

Sound's like a really good idea regarding copyright etc. but how do we implement it? Probably some client side java script magic? I'll see if I can put something together.

[nikita]

I made a greasemonkey script - see the general translation thread: gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=general&thread=273&post=35897

[legion]

elthenstorm > well, as I said, I am a native French speaker (though of course that doesn't mean I couldn't use help for the translation, because of course while my English level is good, it is far from perfect).

The first problem with translating English to French is that, if the exact meaning and approximate phrasing is preserved, the resulting French sentences tend to be much longer than the original English sentence; so to preserve the pacing and to deal with the original size of the speech balloons, simplification and change of syntax are often needed.

Style is another problem, respecting the original style while producing something that is also good style in French is very difficult, for many things that are good style in English are not in French, even if they're not ungrammatical (for instance, French is allergic to close repetitions of the same word, and isn't very fond of the passive voice)

That said!

"It closer resembles" doesn't quite convey the same flavour as "it rather looks like", does it?

Well, the problem is that the sentence before that is "Gunnerkrigg Court does not look much like a school at all". Here, "to look like" can pretty much only be translated by "ressembler" (which has a broader meaning than the English verb, French "ressembler" is variously translated as "to be like", "to look like", "to look alike", "to be alike")… but since I have used "ressembler" here, I can't use it to translate the next sentence "it closer ressembles…" (it would be a repetition, and thus, bad style, at least in French), so I had to find another expression. I've used "on dirait", an idiomatic use of the verb "dire" (to say) which basically means "it looks like", I thought that was close enough to "it resembles"… "closer" however is difficult to translate in French, because it doesn't allow that kind of adverbial use of the corresponding expression "plus près/proche", so instead I just used "plus" which means "more" (not "rather" which would be "plutôt").

So if "resembles" is really important, maybe I could put it back in it's original sentence and invoke another idiomatic expression in the first one, let's see:

— Antimonie : Gunnerkrigg Court n'a pas du tout l'air d'une école…
— Antimonie : Elle ressemble plus à une énorme zone industrielle qu'un lieu d'apprentissage.

(It makes a longer sentence though, and I like the first sentence less).

And a "large industrial complex" isn't quite a "huge industrial park"

Yeah this one, I wasn't sure, I went for a contextual translation, because to me "complexe industriel" implies maybe a big factory, maybe several, while "zone industrielle" is more on the scale of Gunnerkrigg Court, which *is* gigantic and vast. Likewise for favoring "énorme" rather than just "grand", because we are talking about something really big, to me it was implied that the English words had some flexibility in what they actually implied, whereas "grand complexe industriel" and "énorme zone industrielle" are really too different ideas, and the former clearly isn't an accurate description of the Court —but maybe that was on purpose, in which case I should revert to a more literal translation?

The same holds for a number of sentences in this script.

Well, I'm interested to hear about those too

Also at times you didn't respect the original tenses, resulting in a few grammar oddities as in the middle of the paragraph for page 5.

The problem is that English tenses and French tenses really do not map that well. Notably, the English preterit can correspond to the French "passé composé" OR to the "imparfait", depending on weither a single action or a process/habit/state is being described.

And a construction like "At times I would see this creature jumping from shadow to shadow" can't really really be translated with anything but a French "imparfait", or eventually a "présent" (but here that would clearly betray the original sentence); "would" is generally translated as a "conditionnel", but here this tense would not work at all, and actually make the sentence agrammatical.

This also why I sometimes translate an English participle with a fully conjugated verb in French, because French isn't so liberal with it's use of participle (particularly present participles, the overpopulation of which is a notable trait of bad writing, in French)

For page 5, I mostly made a change which was necessary for tense consistency in French:

"Unfortunatly, the bridge is lined with powerful lights that eliminate any shadow, and was also of considerable length."

I don't know to which extense this is actually legal in English, but this kind of tense rupture wouldn't work in French, so I had to fix that. Though maybe then yeah, it clashes with the other sentences in the present, and should do further harmonisation work on this page.

And besides style, meaning is sometimes slightly off : "can you understand me?" means "est-ce que tu comprends ce que je dis ?" rather than "est-ce que tu me comprends ?" ("do you understand me?") which sounds somewhat like "can you relate to what I'm saying?".

Well, I understood what the original sentence mean, and I thought the meaning of the French sentence was evident from context, but perhaps I was indeed too literal here, and maybe "tu comprends ce que je dis ?" would do better…

Also I disagree with "Court" being translated as "Cour". As far as I know, the use of "cour" (as long as only architecture is concerned) is strictly restricted to a wall-enclosed open space. I wouldn't use it for a whole building or ensemble of buildings. But then again, my french is not that good.

Well, my reasons were a bit more complex:

The English word "court" has actually two possible translation in French: "court" and "cour". While they are pronounced the same, there is however a first important difference: "court" is masculine, "cour" is feminine. Since Gunnerkrigg Court is "une école", feminine too, it works better if the short term to refer to it is also feminine.

The masculine word, even if it is closer in graphy, doesn't work anyway: "un court" is a tenis/squash/basketball court.

But "la cour" while it does indeed primarily mean "courtyard, wall-encolsed open space", has an interesting polysemy: it can also mean the court of the king, or a law court. Thus, "la Cour", to me, means not only Gunnerkrigg Court as a place but also as an institution, as a group of people, I think it convey the sense of mystery as to what exactly Gunnerkrigg Court is (yes, I actually thought about all this when I chosed the word :3)


My answer is lengthy, but do not hesitate to make more comment, I really want this translation to be good. Keep in mind that French is my native language, so I'm more likely to make errors in interpreting the English text than in writing the French one!

[the bandit]

I think you've got a good balance between meaning and literal translation. I'm curious what you might be doing/planning to translate Annie's slightly odd, formal style of speaking?

[legion]

Apr 12, 2010 14:17:13 GMT the bandit said:

I'm curious what you might be doing/planning to translate Annie's slightly odd, formal style of speaking?

I haven't thought too much about it, but that's a good question. French is rather rich in processes that mark a discourse more or less formal, such as the use of certain tenses (literary tenses which are normally seldom used in speech), of certain pronouns (formal vs informal (singular) "you" and "we", some relative pronouns), the way question are formed (English "where is he?" can be translated in a great variety of ways in French, from the quite formal "Où est-il ?" to the very colloquial "C'est où qu'il est ?", passing from various intermediate forms), the use of some markedly archaic structures or words… there are really plenty of parameters to play with.

Though I don't know if I want Annie to sound too polite in French, because over-politness, especially in the mouth of characters who you wouldn't expect to speak this way, is often a trait of bad literature (because bad writers think using all the formal structures is enough to make their writing good, regardless of the fact that many of them are clichés). I'd rather have her speak in a fluid, normal language, if free of colloquialism, and show the contrast by having other students use more colloquial structures.

But maybe that's not a good idea?

[the bandit]

They're both good ideas. But would it still be considered hack writing when the other characters didn't use the literary structures in their speech, thus showing the author is not just trying to be "literary," but rather that she does speak in an odd manner?

Sometimes Annie phrases her words completely normally, but a lot of the time her sentences are a bit more awkward than fluid, normal language. For example, the first panel on the recent 703 page, she says, "You know, a lot of people are looking for you." That's fluid, normal language. But she follows it with, "You're in a large amount of trouble." That's not fluid, normal language (typically people say that people are in a lot of trouble, just like a lot of people looking for him). I get the impression she picked up a lot of speech patterns from her father (I speculate some of it trained), who by a matter of canon speaks strangely.

[drakebloodiv]

Apr 12, 2010 14:44:44 GMT legion said:

Apr 12, 2010 14:17:13 GMT the bandit said:

I'm curious what you might be doing/planning to translate Annie's slightly odd, formal style of speaking?

I haven't thought too much about it, but that's a good question. French is rather rich in processes that mark a discourse more or less formal, such as the use of certain tenses (literary tenses which are normally seldom used in speech), of certain pronouns (formal vs informal (singular) "you" and "we", some relative pronouns), the way question are formed (English "where is he?" can be translated in a great variety of ways in French, from the quite formal "Où est-il ?" to the very colloquial "C'est où qu'il est ?", passing from various intermediate forms), the use of some markedly archaic structures or words… there are really plenty of parameters to play with.

Though I don't know if I want Annie to sound too polite in French, because over-politness, especially in the mouth of characters who you wouldn't expect to speak this way, is often a trait of bad literature (because bad writers think using all the formal structures is enough to make their writing good, regardless of the fact that many of them are clichés). I'd rather have her speak in a fluid, normal language, if free of colloquialism, and show the contrast by having other students use more colloquial structures.

But maybe that's not a good idea?

I dunno, that seems like a pretty good idea to me. Maybe you could mash up her speech even more by having her use the pronoun 'tu' rather than 'vous' while her sentence structure implies formality. That would really emphasize the fact that she makes everything sound awkwardly formal. Also, when you get to Broken Glass and Other Things, you could have Surma speak in a really relaxed and simple way, to further underscore this.


Edit: Also, every robot should use all formal all the time, just to sound extra robotic.

[the bandit]

I don't know about that. Her oddity in speech is from too much formality and literariness, not from being incorrect or dichotomous. I'd be more inclined to have her using "vous" all the time even when most people wouldn't, except later with Kat (and Robot and Shadow and by Chapter 24 Reynardine).

[legion]

The tu/vous thing is always difficult in French, it depends of who you, who you speak to, of age, of social class, of context, of habit…

A point to understand is that the tu/vous distinction is not a full informal/formal distinction, but rather, a "distance" thing: "vous" marks distance between the speakers, which mean that while most of the time "vous" is indeed more polite, there are situations where using "vous" if "tu" is expected is a sign of contempt, not of respect.

For instance, I would expect Annie to say "vous" to Reynardine when she first meets him in Sivo's body, because he looks imposing and older. However, I'd expect to switch to "tu" when she starts talking to Reynardine in toywolf because… well nobody says "vous" to a teddy.

I think she would say "tu" to Kat and other students (it would be very awkward and unusual for a student to say "vous" to another students), "vous" to teachers and other adults, but perhaps "tu" to ethereal beings and forest creatures (due to having more familiarity with them).


Also, the robots, given how goofy they are, I'd rather expect them to talk like naive children/teenagers.

[Mr Pitchfork]

I don't think formality is the deal with Annie's speech. She talks like she's writing a letter or something. Concise, logical, and literate, but formal? Not even in formal occasions to people talk like she does. She talks as if she is dictating a letter.

[sostorm]

Great work legion! I thought the GC ambiance came across nicely in your translation. I liked the way you took liberties with the text, as translators often do. But then again I'm neither a native to French nor English even though I'm sort of fluent in both. It's so hard to keep the integrity of a text or a novel when translating it while respecting the pace and the style.

I love reading comics in french so this was a real treat. I do however have a hard time finding good French webcomics, do you know any? I mean as good as French and French-Canadian comic writers are there must be some on the web, right?

[sostorm]

And Hazel it's a really good project and surely a good way to learn but there is a reason translators almost exclusively translates TO their native language. It's way too hard the other way and you always run the risk of grammatical errors. If it'd been my project (which it obviously isn't) I would have tried to get my hands on some good French/French-Canadian comics and then translated them to English in order to learn. You learn quite a lot doing that too.

Some of my favorites are:
- Persepolis - Satrapi Marjane
- L'Ascension du haut mal - David B.
- Pyong Yang - Guy Delise
- Le Combat ordinaire - Manu Larcenet

[the bandit]

That's a great suggestion for Hazel, sostorm.

Apr 12, 2010 17:32:30 GMT legion said:

A point to understand is that the tu/vous distinction is not a full informal/formal distinction, but rather, a "distance" thing: "vous" marks distance between the speakers, which mean that while most of the time "vous" is indeed more polite, there are situations where using "vous" if "tu" is expected is a sign of contempt, not of respect.

I'm aware, and I think this plays nicely with some of the students' perceptions that she is, as Jack put it, an ice queen. Annie's just being formal and polite as she was taught (she's never had friends her age, mind), but ends up coming across as distant and possibly snooty.

But I'm not a native speaker of French so it's possible I am mistaken in the assumption that any speaker of French could possibly ever do that, even one raised in the hospital and speaking like she's writing a letter.

Apr 12, 2010 18:07:14 GMT Mr Pitchfork said:

I don't think formality is the deal with Annie's speech. She talks like she's writing a letter or something. Concise, logical, and literate, but formal? Not even in formal occasions to people talk like she does. She talks as if she is dictating a letter.

You seem to think you are disagreeing but you're not. I appreciate the tweaking / clarification, though.

[legion]

sostorm > webcomic aren't really big in French, people rather make "bd-blogs", which is that, blogs in comic form.

The most famous one of those is Boulet, who can be found here: www.bouletcorp.com/blog/ (his blog is quite good, because he's a professional comic maker, with a good number of "real" stories published).

For real webcomics however, many can be found hosted on www.webcomics.fr/

One that is not listed on this site and not too bad is this one: lammyweb.free.fr/strip/index.php

The problem is that French webcomic authors tend to be lazy, and thus when their webcomics are regularly updated at all, it's rarely more often than once a week, and often closer to once a month (that's why many prefer blogs, where they post individual anecdotes or illustrations: with those formats, schedule slips are much less problematic).

I admit that all the webcomics I regularly follow myself are in English.



the bandit > well, I'd still think having Annie say "vous" to other students would be too extreme, there are other ways to make her sound cold and distant without going that far.

----

I will rework on the whole chapter 1 in light of all this, and post the new translation tomorrow~

[drakebloodiv]

Apr 12, 2010 17:32:30 GMT legion said:

Also, the robots, given how goofy they are, I'd rather expect them to talk like naive children/teenagers.

I think I was prolly wrong in saying that all robots use vous all the time. What I meant to say was that they most likely use vous the vast majority of the time with humans (the same way one would use vous with their employer). The only possible exceptions to this would boxbot (cause he's terrible), the doorbot (cause he's supposed to be gruff and intimidating, and probably uses colloquialisms), and Kingbot (cause kings get to be snooty). They might be casual to one another, in which case the conversations when annie is disguised would be less likely to use vous, but I still think that the librarybot would be quite formal. Also, the skywatcher and the angel would likely have a lot of formality to it, seeing as every robot is very solemn and religious when they go to see Kat.

[nikita]

Apr 12, 2010 22:11:34 GMT legion said:

I will rework on the whole chapter 1 in light of all this, and post the new translation tomorrow~

If you need the first couple of pages als text-less photoshop files, send me a PN or something.

PS: If you want, we can also put them online via the transparent-png-stuff that TBeholder suggested and that I implemented. I'm currently using it for the german pages and it works pretty well.

[Mr Pitchfork]

Crud, whoops, I'm forgetting that "formal" when it comes to the workings of language is different from "formal" as in dress.

[legion]

Ok here we go, the whole chapter 1, with modifications:

Page 1 :
— Antimonie : Je m'appelle Antimonie Carver. Je voudrais vous faire part des évènement étranges qui eurent lieu lors de mon séjour à l'école de…
— Titre : GUNNERKRIGG COURT
— Titre : Chapitre 1 : L'ombre et le robot
— Titre : Auteur : Tom Siddell
— Titre : Traducteur : Légion
— Commentaire de l'auteur : La première page.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Bienvenue à Gunnerkrigg Court.
— Commentaire du traducteur : Merci aux membres du forum de Gunnerkrigg Court pour leur aide précieuse dans cette traduction.

Page 2 :
— Antimonie : Gunnerkrigg Court ne ressemble pas du tout à une école…
— Antimonie : On dirait plus une énorme zone industrielle qu'un lieu d'apprentissage.
— Antimonie : Dès la première semaine de mon séjour, je remarquai un certain nombre de phénomènes étranges.
— Antimonie : La plus remarquable de ces bizarreries est que j'avais apparemment obtenu une deuxième ombre.
— Écriteau : NE COUREZ PAS
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Voici Antimonie.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Antimonie est l'héroïne de cette histoire.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Comme dans la plupart des autres écoles au Royaume Uni, tous les élèves doivent porter un uniforme à Gunnerkrigg Court.

Page 3 :
— Antimonie : Je voyais parfois cette créature sauter d'ombre en ombre.
— Antimonie : De temps en temps elle se cachait dans les coins sombres de la Cour.
— Antimonie : Il me fut donc difficile d'expliquer ma situation aux membres de l'établissement…
— Antimonie : Car mon passager clandestin tendait à fuir leur attention.
— Antimonie : Toutefois, la plupart du temps, ce spectre ténébreux me suivait fidèlement.
— Antimonie : Un soir, pendant l'étude individuelle
— Panneau : Étude
— Antimonie : Je décidai d'affronter cette créature.
— Lampe : Snap
— Commentaire du traducteur : l'anglais "the court" se traduit par le français "la cour" ; par convention dans ce comic, "la Cour" désigne donc Gunnerkrigg Court elle-même.

Page 4 :
— Antimonie : Bonsoir. Comprends-tu ce que je dis ?
— Ombre 2 : OUI
— Antimonie : Que veux-tu de moi ?
— Ombre 2 : AIDE
— Antimonie : De l'aide ?
— Ombre 2 : PARTIR
— Antimonie : Tu veux partir ? Où veux-tu aller ?
— Panneau : L'étude individuelle doit le rester.

Page 5 :
— Antimonie : Après d'autres questions, je compris que mon nouvel ami,
— Antimonie : Que j'avais avec imagination appelé "Ombre 2",
— Antimonie : Ne pouvait vivre que dans la pénombre.
— Antimonie : Il avait pointé le Bois de Gillitie, qui se trouvait de l'autre côté d'un pont qui traversait les Eaux d'Annan. Son foyer devait être là-bas.
— Antimonie : Ombre 2 était coincé ici depuis longtemps déjà.
— Antimonie : Malheureusement, de puissants réverbères éclairaient le pont et ne laissaient pas la moindre pénombre.
— Antimonie : Et le pont était très long.
— Légende : Bois de Gillitie.
— Légende : Eaux d'Annan.
— Légende : Gunnerkrigg Court.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Gunnerkrigg Court est un internat, ce qui explique pourquoi Antimonie est encore là de nuit.

Page 6 :
— Antimonie : Ombre 2 pouvait à peine s'aventurer dehors sans la protection de mes jambes.
— Antimonie : Et il était incapable de franchir les Eaux d'Annan, au fond du ravin.
— Antimonie : Mais il ne savait pas pourquoi.
— Antimonie : Comme je n'avais pas le droit de quitter le domaine de l'école, je ne pouvais pas conduire Ombre 2 moi-même jusqu'au Bois de Gillitie.
— Antimonie : Ce problème n'avait qu'une seule solution raisonnable.
— Antimonie : Je dois construire un robot capable de marcher, qui te transportera de l'autre côté du pont !

Page 7 :
— Antimonie : Je réalisai vite que je ne savais absolument pas comment construire un robot.
— Antimonie : Je me préparais donc à des recherches difficiles dans le domaine de la robotique.
— Écriteau : Crayons
— Écriteau : Stylos
— Antimonie : Il faudrait aussi trouver des matériaux bruts et les transformer en composants utilisables pour créer mon petit homme de fer.
— Écriteau : Ordinateurs
— Écriteau : Chaises
— Écriteau : Bureaux
— Écriteau : Règ-
— Antimonie : La bibliothèque était un bon point de départ.
— Antimonie : Quoi que.
— Écriteau : PAS DE
— Écriteau : Pièces détachées pour robots

Page 8 :
— Porte : criii
— Antimonie : La chance me souriait.
— Écriteau : PAS DE
— Écriteau : Pièces détachées pour robots
— Boîte : RECHANGE n°13
— Antimonie : Je pris une boîte de pièces de rechange, et retournai vite en salle d'études.
— Panneau : Étude
— Antimonie : J'avais tout ce qu'il me fallait pour accomplir ma tâche.

Page 9 :
— Antimonie : Heureusement, assembler l'engin fut plutôt facile.
— Assemblage : clic
— Assemblage : clac
— Antimonie : Et en peu de temps, il fut prêt.
— Antimonie : Mais je ne savais pas encore s'il pourrait faire ce que j'avais en tête.
— Bouton : boup !
— Robot : ding !
— Robot : Hé, bonjour vous !
– Antimonie : Bonjour, Robot.
— Robot : Merci de m'avoir réassemblé !
— Robot : hop !
— Antimonie : Désolée de ne pas avoir trouvé ton autre bras.
— Robot : Pas de problème ! Tu as fait au mieux !

Page 10 :
— Antimonie : Nous retournâmes tous les trois au pont.
— Antimonie : Ombre 2, attends ici un moment, il faut encore jour dehors.
— Antimonie : Robot, il faut que tu fasses quelque chose pour moi. Tu dois traverser ce pont pour ramener mon ami chez lui.
— Robot : Pas de problème ! Je marche très bien !
— Antimonie : C'est très loin. Et si tu tombes ?
— Robot : Humm…
— Robot : Ben, on ne sait pas si on n'essaye pas !
— Antimonie : En effet.
— Robot : clang
— Antimonie : Ce soir alors.
— Antimonie : Avant les cours du soir, tu partiras en voyage.

Page 11 :
— Antimonie : La nuit tombée, Ombre 2, Robot et moi nous retrouvâmes devant le pont.
— Robot : Je marche juste tout droit ?
— Antimonie : Tout juste.
— Robot : Je dois revenir après ?
— Antimonie : … Seulement si tu le veux.
— Antimonie : Bien, Ombre 2, tu vas enfin pouvoir rentrer chez toi. J'espère que ton voyage ira bien.
— Robot : Bon, allons-y !
— Antimonie : Au revoir Robot. Au revoir Ombre 2.
— Robot : Au revoir maman !

Page 12 :
— Pas : tap tap tap
— Robot : Je marche très bien !
— Pas : clang
— Robot : Quelle belle soirée !
— Pas : clang clang clang
— Robot : T'inquiète pas, petit gars ! Je contôle tout !
— Pas : clang

Page 13 :
— Robot : Oh regarde ! Un zozio !
— Tic-Toc : tic toc
— Tic-Toc : tic toc
— Pas : clang clang
— Tic-Toc : tic toc
— Robot : Gentil zozio !
— Tic-Toc : tic toc

Page 14 :
— Pas : clang clang clang
— Robot : On y est, petit gars !
— Robot : Humm, je vais chercher un nouveau bras !
— Pas : clang clang

Page 15 :
— Porte : criii
— Adulte : Mademoiselle Carver, que faites-vous ici ?
— Antimonie : Pardon monsieur, je me suis perdue.
— Adulte : Oui, bon, suivez-moi donc. Les cours du soir vont commencer.
— Porte : clic
— Commentaire de l'auteur : La fin du premier chapitre.

Page bonus :
— Tea : Comme la plupart des écoles au Royaume Uni, Gunnerkrigg Court répartit ses élèves en quatre maisons.
— Tableau : *Queslett *Thornhill *Chester *Foley
— Tea : Pour chacune des années de chaque maison, il y a une classe nord et une classe sud. Il y a donc huit classes par année.
— Tableau : Maison / Année / Sixième classe
— Tea : Antimonie est en première année, à Queslett nord, le sigle de sa classe est donc 7QN.
— Titre : GUNNERKRIGG COURT
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Page bonus 1
— Commentaire de l'auteur : L'école où j'étais avait le même arrangement de classes, comme la plupart des écoles au Royaume Uni. J'ai utilisé les mêmes noms pour les maisons (ils ont dû changer depuis, j'imagine), et j'étais moi-même à Queslett nord.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : L'année 7 est la première année du collège, c'est l'équivalent de la sixième en France. Les enfants de l'année 7 ont entre 11 et 12 ans.
— Commentaire de l'auteur : Ce type d'organisation n'est pas propre aux internats. Toutes les écoles du Royaume Uni sont comme ça, autant que je sache. J'étais dans un collège normal, pour ma part. Il se trouve simplement que Gunnerkrigg Court est un internat.
— Commentaire du traducteur : La "sixième classe" ("sixth form", en anglais) correspond aux deux dernières années du collège au Royaume Uni, qui sont optionnelles (on ne les suit que pour certains types d'études).

[legion]

Apr 12, 2010 23:03:17 GMT nikita said:

Apr 12, 2010 22:11:34 GMT legion said:

I will rework on the whole chapter 1 in light of all this, and post the new translation tomorrow~

If you need the first couple of pages als text-less photoshop files, send me a PN or something.

PS: If you want, we can also put them online via the transparent-png-stuff that TBeholder suggested and that I implemented. I'm currently using it for the german pages and it works pretty well.

For now I find it simpler to just work with txt, as the translation is getting inputs and corrections (which is why I post it here).

Eventually, I'd like it to be avalaible on a full website, not just as a pluggin (so it would be easier to access for the potential French anglophobic audience), but it will depend of Tom's willingness.

[Klex]

Hi. I started a french translation several months ago, but didn't go very far due to the lack of photoshoppers. I'd be happy to help as another native speaker if need be

[legion]

Well, review and opinion of the first chapter translation I made would be great, for a start, I'm sure it can be made better!

This also reminds me to start working on chapter 2 though, so thanks for the bump :3