Book Blogger Hop; What Drives Me Bonkers While Reading a Book?

It's Friday again, which means it's time for a new Book Blogger Hop post, courtesy of Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The question of the week was "Is there anything that drives you bonkers when you're reading a book and makes you want tell the author a thing or two?".
Two of my really big pet peeves are poor grammar/spelling and crappy translations. I get that sometimes mistakes happen, but I've read several books from a Norwegian publisher where it's obvious they haven't done any proofreading before printing the book to the extent one ought to think the books are written by a lazy elementary school pupil.

When it comes to crappy translations, I've got a good example that could bring a bit laughter. I once read a historical fiction novel set in the Elizabethan time. The scene was indoors and somehow the translator managed to translate the English word for "flies" to the Norwegian word for airplanes. It was a bit of a facepalm/what the heck-moment, as I honestly doubt they had indoor airplaces while Elizabeth I reigned. Also, in general I sometimes notice that the translators struggle a bit between singular you and plural you while translating into Norwegian (as we have different words for singular/plural).

Comments

  1. Oh dear, that was a bad translation slip. I, too, hate badly done translations, especially when it's an author I also read in the original language and I can just tell from the 'feel' of the prose that the translation into English is off.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, it was one of those facepalm moments. And I totally get your point i terms of prose and translations.

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  2. poor editing drives me nuts as well! I love helping authors with their ARC's and such, but if it's fully published and it's clear there was never an editor, that can ruin a book for me. Great answer!

    My BBH

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    Replies
    1. Good to see I'm not the only one who gets a bit nuts over such things. :-P

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