Songtekst vertaling

[Earl]

Ik ben net begonnen Nederlands te leren en Ik vind het lied interessant. Zouden jullie het vertalen voor mij.

refr.
Rosa Rosa Rosam
Rosae Rosae Rosa
Rosae Rosae Rosas
Rosarum Rosis Rosis

Tango uit een grijs verleden
Die de schooljeugd van het heden
Op moet dreunen als gebeden
Bij het leren van Latijn
Tango van de lyceisten
Die hun jeugd eraan verkwisten
En die dokteren aan listen
Om te ontkomen aan die pijn
Tango die gestrenge ouders
Laden op de smalle schouders
Van hun Keesjes, die de houders
Van het roer der toekomst zijn

refr.

Tango van de knappe floppen
Die met pukkels op hun koppen
Hun gebrek aan ziel verkroppen
Als de besten van de klas
Tango van de slappe Kezen
Die geen letter kunnen lezen
Maar straks dokter moeten wezen
Omdat papa dat nooit was
Tango die ik nimmer leerde
Daar ik toen al rebelleerde
En verbuigingen begeerde
Van mijn nichtje Rosa Rosas

refr.

Tango van het zoete dwalen
Pink aan pink door liefdes dalen
Zo betrapte vele malen
Om de zwartrok in het gras
Tango van de natte gaarde
Waar ik in de plassen staarde
En genadeloos ontwaarde
Dat ik geen Columbus was
Maar ook de tango van 't plantsoen
Waar in 't rosarium in 't groen
Mijn nichtje bij een korte zoen
Al bloosde als een rosae rosas

refr.

Tango van het kantjes lopen
Tot ik nullen kreeg bij hopen
Die ik toen maar ging verkopen
Als aureolen voor Sint Jan
Tango van de hoogste prijzen
Voor de ijverigste lijzen
Propvol onbepaalde wijzen
Die geen mens gebruiken kan
En ook de tango van de spijt
Omdat een mens in later tijd
Ontdekt dat in volwassenheid
Een Rosa doornen dragen kan

refr....

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

In welke taal moet het vertaald worden?

[Earl]

graag in Engels

[Reinder]

Ik vind het een heel moeilijke songtekst, dit zou ik niet zonder woordenboek kunnen vertalen, ik zou zelfs nog sommige Nederlandse woorden op moeten zoeken, om erachter te komen wat ze precies betekenen.

[Muisje]

Here's a quick translation, I didn't put too much thought into it The chorus is the Latin paradigm of rosa, as you probably know, so I left it out.

Tango from a grey past
That the school children of the present
Have to chant like prayers
When learning Latin
Tango of the Lyceum students
Who waste their youth on it
And who are making up plans
To escape from the pain
Tango which strict parents
Burden on the small shoulders
Of their little Keeses*, who hold
The steering wheel of the future

[chorus]

Tango of the smart ??
Who with pimples on their heads
Swallow their lack of souls
Being the best of the class
Tango of the weak Keeses
Who can't read a single letter
But will have to be a doctor later on
Because daddy never was
Tango that I never learned
As I was already a rebel then
And longed for declensions
From my cousin Rosa Rosas

[chorus]

Tango of the sweet wandering
Pink by pink through love's valleys
??
??
Tango of the wet garden
Where I stared into the puddles
And mercilessly discovered
That I was no Columbus
But also the tango of the plantation
Where in the rose garden in the green
My cousin with a short kiss
Already blushed like a rosae rosas

[chorus]

Tango of being lazy
Until I got heaps of zeros**
Which I went on to sell (for lack of something better)
As aureolas for Saint John
Tango of the highest prices
For the most zealous ones
Stuffed full with infinitives
That are of use to no one
And also the tango of regret
Because a person in later times
Discovers that, once grown up
A Rosa can carry thorns

*Kees is a boys' name, Keesjes is diminutive plural and Kezen regular plural.
**school grades go from zero to ten or one to ten, with zero/one being the worst and ten the best.

As Reinder mentioned, the text is somewhat difficult to understand, it has a lot of old-fashioned words and prases. It's nice if you like the song but I wouldn't recommend it to learn Dutch with As for the question marks, I'm not sure what they mean with floppen here, it seems to refer to the students but I have no idea how to interpret it. And the two lines I left out are ungrammatical (or I can't make sense of them anyway), it's something about getting caught and someone with a black skirt.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

I think 'floppen' can be translated as 'nerds' here. It refers to a kind of student that's ugly, but smart.

I can't really make sense of those two sentences either. I think the 'zwartrok' may refer to someone from the church, but I'm not sure.

N.B. The text is from Jacques Brel, who was a French speaking Belgian, so that can be an explanation why we are missing some of the meanings here.

[Spaigelploatje]

Een zwartrok is een geestelijke . Ik zou ook niet weten hoe dat te rijmen valt met de rest van de tekst.

[Muisje]

Nou die geestelijke past er nog wel in, het klinkt een beetje als een katholieke school of zo. Maar de zin klopt gewoon niet.

Wait, I just had an epiphany. What if the om should be ons? Then it would be something like 'the clergyman caught us like this on the grass many times'. With a weird word order, but hey, it's a song.

(I've never heard floppen used like that, by the way, it just makes me think of a floppy disk. )

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

I guess it should be 'ons' indeed, then it makes sense!

Well, I thought about a sentence like: "Wow, dat is echt geflopt", but then used as a noun...

[pswis]

The Dutch lyrics of this song were in fact translated from French as Jacques Brel was indeed a Belgian as mentioned earlier. However the french text is full with words with several meanings. So the translation into Dutch is not always literally correct. Moreover, the translation is adapted in that way that it was also a nice song to listen to in Dutch, looking for words which sounds matched with each other.

That explains why they chose the word "floppen" to match with "koppen". As a Flemish Dutch native speaker, I know "flop" as a failure (een mislukking). The translator was creative and refers to "several failed persons" (mislukkelingen). I never heard this used this word in that way. In French, the songs refers to those who are "forts en thème" which refers to (diegenen die minder begaafd,minder slim zijn) or in English : those who are not so smart.

A "zwartrok" is a name given to the missionaries who went to baptize the Indians in North America. The Indians called them Black Robes, which refers to the cassocks they were wearing. Now, I listened again to the song in Dutch and it should indeed be "zo betrapt vele malen - ONS de zwartrok in het gras" or translated in English as "where the Black Robes caught us so many times". In the 1950-60's, priests were eager to go and catch those who in their believe were living in sin...Those priests were connected to the school and hated by the pupils. That's why Brel refers to it.

Hope this helps. But if you really would like to know what Brel meant, go and ask for a French native speaker to translate it. He too will have difficult time though!

[Hannahanneke]

Completely off-topic.... but welcome pswis on Unilang! Hope you'll have a great time here .