Posts in this category will differ in French and English – languages will be inverted, of course, and some content will be adapted.

In the sixties, it has been a popular musical trend - both in France and Québec, I believe - to translate English hits into French songs. This might seem corny – and it was: try to imagine “The Locomotion” or “These boots are made for walking” in another language – but I guess songs were easier to market abroad once translated in a foreign language. Hey, it’s still valid: Shakira, for one, has done a lot of song translation in recent years.

As a result, almost all the classics of English holiday songs were translated into French (and have become classics of the holidays in French). I should also note that there are legislations in radio that require a minimum percentage of French songs to be aired on Québec’s French-speaking radio stations, as a means to preserve the language (oh, it’s protected like you wouldn’t believe…).

Words and entire sentences have been changed in the translation, in the pursuit of rhyming. In good holiday fun, I thought I would take two of these holiday classics that were translated to French, and re-translate them back into English.

The little Red-Nosed Reindeer
(Notice there’s no names at all in this version, to us he’s just the little Red-Nosed reindeer.)

When snow covers green Finland
And reindeer cross the heath (most words in those 2 verses end with the same sound)
The wind in the night
At the herd, there’s still talk about him

{Chorus}
He was called Red Nose
Oh! How cute he was
The little red nose reindeer
Red as a wick
His little nose made them laugh
Everybody made fun of it a lot
They even went so far as to say
That he liked to have a little drink

A fairy who heard him
Cry in the dark
Said, to cheer him up,
Come to heaven tonight

Like a red nose angel
You will drive in the sky
With your little red nose
Santa Clause’s sleigh

(Solo and repeat of the last two paragraphs)

{Chorus, modified}
He was called Red Nose
Oh! How cute he was
The little red nose reindeer
Red as a wick
Now that he trains
His chariot through the skies
He’s the king of reindeers
And his nose inspires envy

You, girls and boys
For the great night
If you know your lessons
As soon as midnight sounds
This little dot that moves
Like a star in the sky
It’s Red Nose’s nose
Announcing Santa Clause (repeat three times)

(Fun fact: “Red Nose” was adopted for a name by an organization which offers a free drive-back service – by volunteers – during the holidays for people who had too much to drink.)

Hail the wind (Jingle Bells)

On the long road
All white with white snow
An old man advances
With his cane in hand
And high up there, the wind
Whistling in the branches
Blows him the romance
He sang (when he was a) little boy:

{Chorus:}
Hail the wind, hail the wind
Hail the winter wind
That goes whistling, blowing (alliteration in French)
In the tall green firs…
Oh! Hail the wind, hail the wind
Hail the winter wind
Snow ball and new year’s day (top rhyming, eh!)
And happy new year grand-mother…
Merry, merry Christmas
Of a thousand candles
When sing to the sky
The bells of the night
Oh! Hail the wind, hail the wind
Hail the winter wind
That brings back to old children
Their memories of yesterday…

And the old man
Goes down to the village,
It’s the hour where everything’s nice (used for “quiet”)
And shadow dances at the corner of the fire
But in each house
An air of party floats
Everywhere the table is ready
And the same song is heard:
{to the Chorus}

I think I prefer the French version of this last one, actually, because the story is sweeter and it’s third person.

Early happy holidays, Englishwomen and Englishmen!

A couple of years ago, Émilie asked me to set up our WordPress installation to allow publishing in both English and French. So here is how we achieved this. Technically, having a bilingual blog isn’t that complicated – it’s writing all the posts twice that takes some patience.

After trying out several things and plugins, we finally found what we needed: Polyglot. We still use the 0.4 that existed back then – and which still works nicely – but I’m sure the newer 2.5 version is even better (as a matter of fact, I really should update that eventually).

Polyglot is really simple to install and use. For installation, one must modify polyglot.php to define the languages to be used, then modify wp-config.php for the default language. Next, to allow visitors to view the site in the preferred language, the parameter &lp_lang_pref=en or &lp_lang_pref=fr must be added to the link for language choice. This parameter will create a cookie that will remember the preference of the visitor. As for the RSS links, they can be located by adding ?lp_lang_view=fr or ?lp_lang_view=en to the links.

For composing, it’s not complicated either: everything that is between <lang_en> </lang_en> tags will only appear if the language parameter is ‘en’. For example:
<lang_en>Here is a cool picture</lang_en><lang_fr>Voilà une belle image</lang_fr><img src=’coolpic.jpg’>

In this example, the text is translated according to the visitor’s language, and the image appears in both cases (no need to repeat it because it is not included in a language tag).

For more advanced users, it is also possible to create your bilingual theme by using a php Polyglot command directly in your theme files; for example this text that presents recent posts:
<?php lp(‘<lang_fr>Récents articles</lang_fr><lang_en>Recent posts</lang_en>’); ?>
In version 0.4, it was the lp command that was available, it think this has changed in the newer version to p__ or p__e.

When we started using Polyglot, bilingual blog plugins were pretty rare, and those that worked even more so. Polyglot has met our needs. There are probably more possibilities today, but I recommend it because it is simple and handles the job well.

There. Now all’s left is translating this post.

For fun, I drew (on the computer) a coloring page for Xavier, who is big on fish/Nemo/waves right now (and who still loves pirates… especially since we’ve started watching Peter Pan – the 2003 movie – together). If you like it, print it out for your own little mateys! The PDF is here: pirates.pdf

I hope to draw some more in the future, so I created a web page to place them online. It’s over there: http://emilieonline.com/coloriage/. I’ll tell you if I make any more (and I’ll work on the simplistic look of that webpage, too).

Notice anything new?

This morning, mama and I went to the jewellery store. The lady there put a little cream on my earlobes, then she fixed them with tape. Mommy put my hat on so I wouldn’t play with my ears (and keep them warm!) while they were “freezing”. Then we went to run some errands for an hour. I got to watch the fish and parakeets at the pet store, and some birds in an aviary. It turns out I quite enjoy feathered friends.

Afterwards, we went back to see the lady at the jewellery store. It upset me when she pulled off the sticky tape – she got some of my hair! – but her friend distracted me with a metal rattle then, and I didn’t even notice the punch.

Now mommy won’t stop staring lovingly at my little sparkling studs – her and every granny we met on our way to the car – and I’m having a big nap to recuperate. It’s true that I look precious enough with my little rocks, after all… and I’d like to see them try mistaking me for a boy, now!

Oh, I’ve had fun with this redesign. If you’re wondering what I’ve been doing lately – except for raising two kids, working part time, cooking/eating/sleeping/cleaning, working on my project for this year’s BW secret santa, figuring out logistics for holiday festivities and all that – this is it. This has been my little hobby island these past few weeks. And you ain’t seen all of it yet.

Let’s note first that I’ve changed the blog name. Partly because I’ve outgrown my liking for it (let’s face it, we’re not Italian), and because I really should have googled that previous name before adopting it. It’s now called “The Stories of our Lives”, because that’s what the blog is.

As for the theme, I call this one “Kaleidoscope” (it was either that or “Rubik”), because I can change its look in different ways. The head photo can be replaced, of course, but I have also built up (as of yet) four nuance schemes with the same original structure.

1. The present one is “Snowflakes”, meant for the holidays/winter;
2. there is also “Sepia”, a more antique look;
3. then “Suit up”, contemporary/masculine;
4. and finally “Rainbow”, which I like a lot, it’s very much a preschool look and I’ve used authentic chalk drawings of Xavier for the background.

These other nuances will dress up the blog alternatively according to how they match the header photo.

I have to thank Frank for a couple of things:

• Coding the PHP gizmo that updates the kids’ ages on the logo tab on the left.
• Setting up the widget that drops random pics from our Picasaweb albums on the right.

Enjoy the new theme – I know I do!

PS. We might be adding soon a little menu that will let visitors go from a nuance to the next, as they wish. To be followed…