On Friday, March 28, 2003 1:43 AM, Rene Salm <rsalm@...> wrote:

> I noticed immediately at the beginning of my interview with Ven N.
> that
> he doesn't speak English as well as he writes it. This indicated to me
> that he probably revises his English carefully before allowing it to
> be published. Nevertheless, his spoken English is quite good, much
> better
> than the ordinary Sri Lankan's. And once it has been revised, his
> written English is even better than that of many native speakers.
> Only rarely do I catch an unidiomatic 'turn of phrase' in his books.
>

I didn't know that he translates all the books by himself.

> In 2001 when I visited Ven. N., he said that translating the Nibbana
> lectures were consuming a great deal of his time. Then he was just
> starting to translate the lectures into English. I see that two years
> later there are still only about 8 out of 40 lectures on the web:
> <http://www.beyondthenet.net/calm/clm_main1.htm> I don't know if the
> remaining thirty or so have yet been translated from Sinhala. That
> would be a very big project and perhaps he needs help!

In fact Part 8 just arrived lately, so I think we will have to wait some
time for all the 40 to be finished :-)

Lars
(Thinking about stopping at Nanananda's on his way to Thailand. Well, if I
ever do.)