Yes, I've heard some things about his translation. I may get around to that some day. My professors are a bit divided on Tolkien translations: some like them, others don't. :) I'm currently reading* Beowulf in the original Old English for a course.

*Read: doing painstaking and terribly slow work on my own sucky translation. :P

Yes, his essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" completely changed the field of Beowulf criticism, so it's extremely valuable. I do believe he was indeed extremely passionate about the subject, that much is clear from the loving detail in his works. :)

I enjoyed the movies. While they can't reach the books, they were nice to watch.

Absolutely. They are a really good example of movie adaptation despite the problems i have with them :)

Hmm, not sure about that. Faramir was supposed to be the brighter side to Boromir's dark flawed hero. He could see that taking the ring would not serve him or Gondor and made the right choice

(from Wikipedia)
Faramir also asked about the One Ring, but Frodo tried to avoid the subject. Faramir determined that Frodo was carrying one of Sauron's great weapons. At this point, he showed the crucial difference between him and his proud brother:

But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo

I just hate how they ruined him in the movie and turned him into a power hungry clone of his brother.

Oh my... i just searched for the old english Beowulf....
Reminded me of trying to understand anything written in old saxon (the precursor of low german)...
Right. That's it. It's been some time since i touched both the movies and the books. Thanks.

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well.


I'm in.

*shoots confetti while riding bicycle all over Endre's lawn*

Understandable. I'm quite interested in old literature too and languages (and unfortunately not very good at it :P)... but i won't dar to read medieval (german) literature currently (like Parzival or the Nibelungenlied)....;)

Right, GoG is being really slow for me (probably all the people buying Star Wars games) so I think I'll retire and give Star Wars Rebellion another crack :)

Talk later (or tomorrow depending how much time I sink in it) :)

Good evening *wave* How are you?

Good evening :)
Yeah doin fine here - how are you?

Yeah here as well. Really slow at the moment. See you later :)

I've mastered Middle English, but that was easier for me than it would be for a native speaker, as there are many German/Dutch/Frisian influences (and French, but I suck at French). Because it's rather close to those languages it was possible to learn it in a few weeks, and I can read Middle English comfortably without much need to look up words. Old English is an entirely different beast, though. :P

Well, it's never too late to learn! It's good to have that interest. And even if you only read in translation, that's fine too, right? That way you can still enjoy the stories. :)

Probably the same with middle high german and old saxon ut i would guess that old high german might also be rather diffrent. Middle High german is waaay easier than old saxon im comparison (i don't even speak modern low german which is a real pity considering me living in Northern Germany...probably the same...one could argue low german and german are different languages.

But i can understand written dutch a bit :)

I'm busy spreading as much confetti on Endre's lawn before he comes back, while fighting Theodore.

On a more serious note, I'm doing much better after having a bad Fri-Mon.
But I don't have the energy to even try and catch up with this thread. Anything fun I missed? Or anything of note about a fellow GOGger?

Yep, our languages are pretty similar. I can understand German just fine, but I suck at the grammar. Thanks to my comprehension skills I got an 8 on my final exam for German, but don't ask me to construct a grammatically correct sentence. To be honest, I'm also facing that problem with Old English. I don't tend to pay much attention to grammar, I just go for meaning, and usually the correct grammar becomes clear to me after that.