Hi, Everyone! I know I have teased your expectations of new posts in this blog, but I am now back with some new ideas for your translation experiments. In this blog, I am taking you to some idiomatic and slang expressions used to talk about the weather. When you start experimenting with translations, please remember to observe the adequate stylistic colouring, imagery and other discourse features. It means that your translation variants should correspond to similar styles in the translating language. Please, feel free to offer additional translation variants. Read this before you begin to experiment:
The Formal means rarely, if ever, used in everyday discourse.
The Relaxed means that it is sometimes used in interpersonal communication among people.
The Informal means that it is quite typical of and frequently used among friends.
Situation 1: - It is raining heavily.
Formal: This persistent heavy rain is quite miserable.
Relaxed: It's pouring - how depressing.
Informal: It's bucketing outside - damn it!
Situation 2: - A major flood has swept the country.
Formal: It means we're re-living 1953...Perhaps we should take to the yacht? Floods, you say? Global warming, I suppose...
Relaxed: Riverbanks bursting, general chaos...Where's Noah's Ark when you need it! No one cares about our environment! I hope the flood defences are in place....
Informal: Water everywhere...let's get a little dinghy - row, row, row your boat! The news says all this weird weather is our own fault... Who cares! Swimming anyone?!
Situation 3: - The weather has been very changeable.
Formal: The weather has been most peculiar - four seasons in one day, as the saying goes.
Relaxed: Strange weather - Sun, rain, hot, cold... what's it to be?
Informal: This weather's bananas! Is it coming or going?
Situation 4: - It is very cold.
Formal: The temperature outdoors is exceedingly low.
Relaxed: With this weather you really know the winter's here. It's so cold outside - time to light the fire.
Informal: - It's Baltic out there! Wrap up or you'll freeze your bits off.
Situation 5: - It is sunny and hot.
Formal: Time for a Pimm's and lawn tennis, old chap - the good weather is with us!
Relaxed: The sun has got his hat on - hip hip hooray! Uncork the wine!
Informal: Time for beer and babes, so pull out the hotpants chickadees - the sunshine has landed.
Situation 6: - It is snowing.
Formal: The precipitation has taken on a decidedly subzero quality.
Relaxed: It it snows enough, we can get the old sled out...
Informal: Snowman time! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Well, take your time to enjoy the interlingual conflicts. I'm sure you know a lot of weather-related idioms and slang, so, please, leave a few examples in your comments. PS: By the way, when I was in Great Britain a few years ago, I was slightly surprised that the British no longer use 'It rains cats and dogs' in colloquial settings. It has become obsolete. So, the picture above is just an illustration to the outdated saying.
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