Seems to be something of a Scandinavian bonanza around here of late…

Here’s an example of someone translating something just because she wanted to:

This is a story from the Norwegian newspaper VG, the biggest newspaper in the country, from today’s edition. Not that these things matter in today’s dog-eat-dog world, but I found it quite touching, and I want to share.

Clarification for the literally minded: I do think these things matter, but I’m sure many will say that they don’t. Anecdotal evidence, just a sappy human interest story, bla bla. Whatever. I think that this is a story that some may be interested in hearing. If you’re not interested, cork it. I’ve translated the story into English and am posting it here. The original, in Norwegian, is here.

Leisha’s Random Thoughts & Ponderings: Not that it matters …

It tells a 20-year-old story about a rather well-known American, and a woman en route to Norway. A good story.

In other news, it’s worth pondering the legalities of this sort of translation: in the comment on the original article, the translator left a comment linking to the translation on her blog. Not sure about the legality of republishing an entire translation of an article (seems dubious), but presumably if the original publication took exception to her derivative work, they could contact her. It also seems relevant that the Norwegian publication doesn’t seem to market an English translation of their articles (so they’re not losing revenue in that regard).

But IANAL… I’d like to get the opinions of professional translators out there about rules of thumb in such cases.