Qwynegold wrote:
- First off is the title of the book. Its Swedish title is Bögjävel, where bög means a male gay person. I think Swedish bög is ruder than English gay. And jävel comes from djävul which means devil. So what expletive do you think I should use in English? "Damn gay" (can you use gay as a noun like this?) or "damn homo" is somewhat close to the original meaning, but I'm not sure native speakers would phrase it like this. How about fucking or fucken as the adjective?
It's really hard to guess what the intent of the original is, as a non-speaker. The most direct way to say this would probably be "fucking faggot". But if you call your novel "Fucking Faggot", you are either a) a hip, ironic gay guy writing gay erotica, b) a really angry gay guy being really angry and intentionally trying to offend your audience, or c) a ranting homophobe.
Otherwise, you might want to tone it down a bit. "Gay" is possible but, as noted, not usually used in the singular. IMD, I think "queer" might be a good option - it's traditionally grossly offensive, but it's been "reclaimed" enough that I think a non-offensive interpretation is much easier than with 'faggot'. There's always "homo". A traditional one here, offensive but not as obscenely so as 'faggot', would be "poof" or "poofter". But this sort of slang and how much different words have been reclaimed is going to be very specific to times and places and hard to judge.
"Damn" is a possibility. It's pretty weak, and may come across as ironic. "Goddamn" is full irony, which might be what you're going for. ["Fucking Faggot" is a really angry, offensive title; "Goddamn Gay" is laughing at itself from the start]. "Fucking" is much stronger, but also more obscene. And potentially confusing it that it does have those positive/erotic possibilities that "damn" doesn't. Other swearwords may create interesting effects, but are less natural. Or you could drop it, particularly if you go with a stronger gay-word. "Faggot" is probably stronger than "damn gay".
There's also the article question. Modern titles often don't have them, but older ones usually did, and it does help things look title-y.
[*]A fifteen-year-old, damn gay who lives in Eslöv, southern Sweden.
I'm wondering about the word fifteen-year-old. How many dashes should I use and where?
Oh god, please don't ask! The correct answer for most hyphen-related questions is "nobody knows". (and that's a dash, not a hyphen). "Logically", there should be two hyphens. However, the trend is always toward fewer hyphens. I don't know what 'normal' practice is these days. I'd probably stick with two, just because either option with one looks wrong. The radical option would be zero.
The original had fifteen written out, but should I use "15" instead?
No, IMO.
But a bigger point is: i don't know what a "damn gay" is in this case. It definitely looks wrong here.
[*]I'm in my senior year at middle school; high school starts in fall.
These education related words are really difficult to translate. He's in ninth grade, which is the last year of Swedish junior high. After that comes high school, where we do not count grades anymore. Are any of these words wrong or very much associated with either BrE or AmE?
I have no idea what these words mean. In England we mostly have primary school to 11, then secondary school to 16, then sixth-form college to 18, optionally. Sixth-form colleges are often integrated into secondary schools. Some schools for logistic reasons separate into senior and junior halves, but that's not standardised. Years are numbered from R to 13, but local older systems can be followed informally. [like counting from 1 instead of R, or calling year 12 and year 13 "lower sixth" and "upper sixth".] We don't have "grades" or "junior high"s.
[*]It's slightly past three PM and dinner is soon ready.
In the original version it just said "slightly past three and..." with the number written out. (We don't have words for PM and AM, because it's clear from context which one is meant.) Is it odd to write "three PM"? Should I write "3 PM" instead?
You wouldn't normally add 'PM', unless you're using the voice of someone very predantic. If you want the style of a newsready, for instance, then yes, say 'PM', but ordinary people usually don't. IMD. I'd probably write 'three PM', but I believe style guides would say '3 PM'. Or even '3:00 PM'.
Alternatively, you could say "three in the afternoon" if you wanted to be clear but non-clinical. Similarly, I might say something like "It's a bit after three".
And I don't know about "is soon ready". Do you mean "will be ready soon?" Or do you mean it's a bit after three NOW (at the beginning of the sentence) but the END of the sentence is later and dinner is already ready? Because 'soon' can be used to move the narrative on like that, but it seems weird when the former temporal frame had nothing happen in it!
Incidentally, why the present tense? Is this a default in your language, or an actual stylistic decision? It's quite marked in English (though more common than in the past).
[*]She takes a seat next to me and helps herself to one of the pork chops drowned in a light-colored cream sauce.
The subject here is mom. Can you say that she helps herself to a pork chop, even though she's the one who cooked them?
IMD, yes. It's actually sort of a pleasant, comfy way of phrasing it. The implication is not that she's stealing your pork chop, as "help oneself to" usually implies, but more that she's not standing on ceremony, taking one for herself without waiting for someone to serve. "Takes one of the pork chops" would sound a bit colder, to me.
The sauce here is called gräddsås, for which cream sauce is a literal translation. I did however find such a word as "cream sauce" when googling. According to WP, gräddsås is based on cream and fond* or boullion*. *French words, because I can't find English translations. >_<
I don't know what 'fond' is, but the English for 'bouillon' is 'bouillon'. Or, if you're using it as an ingredient, it can be 'stock'. "Cream sauce" sounds OK to me, though not something familiar - but it may not be the right culinary terminology, which is specialised. Looking it up online, it seems like something some people might call IKEA sauce, because you get it with IKEA swedish meatballs (and nowhere else). One option might actually be to leave it untranslated, as many foodstuffs are - although the diacritics make that uncomfortable here, maybe.
Does it matter that it's light-coloured? If not, leave it out.
[*]The room has got stale air and I feel like I have to air it out.
Do you say air out to mean open a window? Because when I google it just seems to mean that you clear a room of people by pulling out a gun.
I think that's fine, yes. Or maybe just "air it"? Though "the room has got stale air" is a bit clunky to me. "The air in the room is stale" is most natural to me, but if you want the room first there's "the room is filled with stale air" or the like.
[*]I turn on the telly and lay underneath the warm and moist duvet.
I thought telly was only used in BrE, but according to Wiktionary it can be either or. Is this true?
*screams* AAAAHHH! No! No! No!
Oh, sorry, that wasn't about the telly. That was the shiver of automatic disgust at someone laying under a moist duvet.
*takes time to shudder some more and avoid vomiting*
I'm not one of those weird people who hate the word 'moist'. But the threshold of 'moist' is way too high for non-insanitary duvets*. Is there mould growing in his duvet? Has he urinated in his bed? Is it... I don't know, dripping with semen? Even a wet duvet would somehow be better, then he'd probably have had a flooding accident or something, but 'moist'? That's just horrifying.
*Originally wrote 'sanitary duvet'. Hmm. Perhaps now. Damn you, euphemistic "sanitary towels" for ruining a perfectly good word...
[*]We've always stuck together.
This sentence is about the main character and his girl friend always being together. But I feel like the meaning of stick changes when you put it in past tense like this. What do you think?
Works fine. [I think the tense is a bit inelegant, but I'm not sure of a better way with the same meaning, and people would say it, so...]
[*]In vain I tried to think about breasts and the little triangle down there, but it did nothing for me.
Do you understand what the triangle is supposed to mean? Is this odd phrasing in English?[/list]
It's odd, but presumably no more so than in Swedish. The idea of the female groinal area as a triangle is an established trope, albeit not one you'd encounter on a daily basis in colloquial speech... though any time you oh dear gods sorry this pun wasn't intentional but here goes beat about the bush about naming female anatomy you're going to look a little quaint (again, honestly, no pun intended).