A Doll's House (Norwegian/English Bilingual Text) (Norwegian Edition)

The best method of translation in my view is parallel text with the opposite pages in two languages (Norwegian left, English right). A famous play that deserves to be in every library.

I had heard a lot of negatives about this book but enjoyed it and found it hard to put down. I can see the craft of Ibsen. As one teaching himself Norwegian, I found it interesting to be able to see the original and actually could read more than I thought. This play is revolutionary for its time and still has resonance today with regards the emancipation of women and indeed human beings from slavery in the guise of domesticity and other forms of legal societal structures. I think a lot of men would find this book says much about the mantles we put on but which are no much better than ball and chain. I imagine that this book would be seen as shocking in some more traditional and rigid cultures.

A lot of glaring typos in the english translation

It's more for someone who is familiar with the Norwegian language. For a beginner, I would suggest children's stories.

I like the concept of two distinct versions for comparison, and familiarizing with an additional language.

The play is great, of course.As I'd only known of Ibsen as 'the Norwegian playwright', I didn't realise that actually he writes in Danish. However, with my basic Norwegian bokmål I did still manage to understand it - especially with the help of the English translation - but it's good to keep that in mind, and comforting to realise that if you can manage to understand the gist of this, then modern bokmål should be much easier. For example, words that stand out are nu (nå), børn/børnene (barn/barna) and efter (etter).I didn't do this myself but using a modern Danish-English (or Danish-Norwegian) dictionary online along the way could help.The book could have been better formatted, but serves its purpose. It's not the prettiest edition but is the only one of its kind on Amazon so I'd say go for it.

Within the first two pages there are a number of completely wrong translations. Here are a couple of examples: hun vedblir å le stille fornøyet which it translates as ‘she is laughing to herself’ when it actually means she continues laughing quietly’, which you could say that maybe it’s just an interpretation. However, there is no excuse for ‘legger hånden på hans arm’ or she puts her hand on his arm. The translation says ‘she puts her hands over his mouth’. There’s just no forgiving that. Then there is an absolute nonsense sentence ‘ Er nu lettsindigheten ute’, which is roughly that she’s now being frivolous. The translation is ‘the same little featherhead’. I mean what is that? That’s not a word. My feeling is that since the text referred to birds frequently in the opening pages it is making a play on this, which leads me to believe that this is an actual old English version i.e. an interpreted version that’s been put side by side with the original Norwegian and is not a proper translation. The English version seems quite archaic and to have taken many liberties with the original translation to interpret it and stylise it in English in a form that’s more poetic than just translating it. This is terrible for a learner.