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I've fallen down a TIX-shaped rabbit hole. This is unexpected, but I guess I'll just enjoy the study motivation for now.

Today I translated Jeg vil ikke leve, which is one hell of an earworm, and I feel like I'm going to have this song stuck in my head for ages. (Honestly, this one reminds me of that horrible period in my life from late 2007-2010 when I broke up with my then-SO and then everything seemed to go wrong, but anyway....)

In the past, with Norwegian, I've had a habit of taking on projects that are much too difficult for me. The first time I tried to translate something, it was when I was very new to Norwegian. Kaizers Orchestra's "Stjerner i posisjon" had just come out, and I was working with a friend to try and get the gist of it from the audio, since there weren't any English translations out yet and nobody had posted the Norwegian lyrics anywhere either. Those familiar with Kaizers are probably not surprised that we had a very tough time.

This song is much closer to my level, haha. For the most part, I haven't run into any big difficulties, but there are still some parts that I found challenging, at least in the sense that I had to look some things up and chew over the best way to put something into English without taking too many liberties with it. It's been fun!

Norwegian lyrics under the cut + my translation and notes to self:

( Jeg vil ikke leve )
( I don't want to live )

I translated three newspaper articles for practice, but after looking over them, I decided to only post the most detailed one, because most of the information is pretty much the same throughout. It was a very fun and interesting experiment, though, and I am glad that I decided to take the time to translate all three.

Brief summary of the conflict:

The Battle of Vågen took place in 1665, and was part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. A fleet of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had sought port in Vågen harbour at Bergen, and an English naval fleet attacked it there. The military forces in the Norwegian fortress, Bergenhus, were supposed to be under secret orders from the Danish king to aid the English, or at least not hinder their attack. However, Bergenhus did not receive the order to help the English, and they aided the Dutch, their actual allies, instead.

The Wikipedia article about this battle is pretty detailed, for those who would like to learn more.

Anyway, here's my translation.

( The great sea battle of Vågen | Det store sjøslaget på Vågen )