- käibetõde rule of thumb
pesukurikas washing paddle, laundry bat
töölisklass working class
prohmakas blunder
verest välja lööma to frighten, fill with fear; to be frightened
Eelroaks serveeriti kala, ja külaline alustas vestlust nii: "Minu suhte töölisklassiga määras eluks ajaks fakt, et kuni kaheksateistkümnenda eluaastani sõin ma iga päev õhtuks krevetti." Kui ma oleksin humorist, kirjutaksin, et nuga, millega ma kala sõin, läks mulle kurke. Fakt on see, et ülesanne lõi mind verest välja: kui tõlgiksin selle sõna-sõnalt, teeksin prohmaka. See, mis Jaapanis on proletariaadi toit, on Ungaris luksusbankettide hõrgutis! Käesolevaga palun vabandust kõikidelt sõnaraamatutoimetajatelt: ma olin sunnitud selle edasi andma nii, et "kaheksateistkümnenda eluaastani sõin ma hommikuti jahusuppi."
Fish was served as an appetizer, and the guest started the conversation like this: "My relationship with the working class was determined for life by the fact that I ate shrimp every day for dinner until I was eighteen years old." If I were a humorist, I would write that the knife that I used to eat the fish got stuck in my throat. The fact is that the task made my blood run cold: if I were to translate it word-for-word, I would commit a blunder. That which is working-class food in Japan is a luxurious banquet delicacy in Hungary! With this I hereby ask forgiveness from all dictionary editors: I was forced to express this as "until I was eighteen years old I ate flour soup each morning."
(Reading this in Estonian about the cultural differences involved in a Japanese-to-Hungarian translation, and then translating it from Estonian to English, makes me wonder how it was originally written in Hungarian as well, or how it was translated from Hungarian to English or Japanese for those editions of the book, etc., since, for example, my Estonian-to-English translation means it now involves four different languages and cultures rather than the original two.)