> And where there is a difference of opinion between two

translations of

> Independent/opinionated
> Evil/Wicked
> Does the difference really matter so very much, can anyone really

say no he's not evil he's wicked, without being persnicketty, that's
what I meant, where one is as good as t'other.


Well, true, there's lots of times when the difference doesn't
matter. I think it was just the way you put it

> > where there is a matter of interpretation, it can show that one
> person's interpretation is as good at the next one's

might make it sound like a general rule, depending how someone
interprets "matter of interpretation". Of course you meant: where
there's no technical reason to favour one word or another on grounds
of accuracy or style. But I just thought I'd clarify. (Yoinks,
we're analysing our own messages now. Has it really come to
this!?) Anyway I have a niggly persnicketty mind and even where
there's nothing to chose between two words, I do still always end up
wondering which is better and changing them back and forth and
bothering people I know by reading stuff at them and asking which
sounds best. Because you never know when you might have missed
something...

> Well LN it strikes me that they [the Complete Sagas of the

Icelanders] are very carefully done, but I keep them away from me
when I am translating because it seems to be cheating to use them
when studying, what do you think.

I think it's good to regularly do some of both, "unseen"
translations where you don't know what to expect, and reading
through something with the help of a good translation (or
translations). That's not cheating (puritan work ethic?); it's
actually a really efficient way of quickly meeting lots of new
idioms and getting a feel for how sentences work. And it's good to
have a variety of methods depending on your mood. You can pick up
on all sorts of subtleties that a dictionary might not have space to
mention. If you have the self-discipline to put them away I reckon
you have the self-discipline to work with them too and take
advantage of all that scholarship. And it doesn't mean you can't
look up as much as you need to in dictionaries and grammar books as
well.

Another resouce I came across--have you seen this [
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/index.htm ]? Some of the sagas here are
only available with subscription, and they're not all complete. But
the ones I printed stars by are free. Of course, they're all
available elsewhere in the net, but these have notes in Modern
Icelandic and you can listen to them read aloud with modern
pronunciation.

Egils saga einhenda og Ásmundar berserkjabana
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/islenska/bokmenntir/isl_sogur/tegun
d/nordurlond/sogur/egilssaga_einhenda/index.htm

*** Eiríks saga rauða ***
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/islenska/bokmenntir/isl_sogur/tegun
d/sagas/sogur/eirikssaga_rauda/index.htm

Gísla saga Súrssonar
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/islenska/bokmenntir/isl_sogur/tegun
d/sagas/sogur/gisla_saga_surssonar/index.htm

Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/islenska/bokmenntir/isl_sogur/tegun
d/sagas/sogur/gunnlaugssaga/index.htm

Hrafnkels saga freysgoða
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/lok/kennarar/grunnskoli/islenska/bokmennt
ir/isl_sogur/hrafnkelssaga/index.htm

*** Haraldar saga harðráða ***
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/islenska/bokmenntir/isl_sogur/tegun
d/nordurlond/sogur/haraldur_hardradi/index.htm

*** Laxdæla saga ***
http://www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/islenska/bokmenntir/isl_sogur/tegun
d/sagas/sogur/laxdaela/index.htm

Llama Nom