Ondagordanto

(Last update on the description: 31st of August 2023)

Bigger collections I'm slowly but surely working on (I list them here mostly for my own convenience):

• Discographies: Anna Oxa, Mina, Lili Ivanova (Songs by Lili Ivanova Sorted by Their Authors), Hana Zagorová (Songs with Lyrics by Hana Zagorová), Sade, Perfume;
• Songs by Bulgarian Composers: Aleksandar Brazitsov, Maria Ganeva, Toncho Rusev (Parts 1, 2), Vili Kazasyan, Zornitsa Popova (Parts 1, 2);
• Songs by Bulgarian Poets and Lyricists: Petya Dubarova (completed until any new songs arise);
• The Golden Orpheus (1965–1999) (to be created), separate editions: 1984, 1986, 1988;
• Sanremo Music Festival Participants: 1. Completed and to be updated in case of new entries: Anna Oxa, Fiordaliso, Iva Zanicchi, Loredana Bertè, Marcella Bella, Ornella Vanoni, Patty Pravo. 2. Completed: Mango, Mia Martini, Milva, Mina.

Other collections (I need to update them, but I'm too lazy to do it currently):

• My Favourite Albums;
• Songs Featuring the Harmonica (Parts 1, 2);
• Songs Featuring Whistling;
• Songs Featuring a Spoken Part;
• Songs and Poems That Mention Mist or Fog;
• Songs (and Poems) with Years or Decades in the Title.

About me:

Languages and music have been my passion ever since I was a child. Using my knowledge of them in order to make lyrics accessible in other languages brings me a lot of spiritual pleasure and satisfaction. It's both a process of spiritual self-enrichment and a way of being useful to other people.

I'm quite meticulous in terms of typography, grammar and punctuation. I respect the rules and particularities of every language, hence I do my best to put them into practice (provided the rules are clear enough for me to understand). Of course, I'm by no means flawless, so if you think I've made a mistake somewhere, please do notify me.

Also, please be aware that I do not take requests for translating lyrics. Although I've done it a few times in the past, I think that translating something I wouldn't really like myself doesn't feel like honest work, so I decided to limit myself to publishing translations of lyrics that I personally like.

About the languages I've selected as being fluent in, and the ones selected as studied:

I have studied a lot of languages out of pure interest over the years – even such which I haven't selected. However, I don't have a set goal such as becoming fluent in any of them in order to talk with other people – at least at this point of my life. I prefer understanding a language when it's written or spoken, but not necessarily being able to speak it.

This is the reason why I don't consider myself fluent in any language besides my native Bulgarian. Yet, I've chosen English, Italian, French and Esperanto rather as the ones I feel most confident to both use and work with. I'm able to speak, as well as translate both from and into these languages. My priority, however, remains translating lyrics into Bulgarian.

As for the ones I've selected as studied, I can understand them at different rates, depending on their proximity to other languages I'm better at. For the sake of clarity, here is a small list concerning my proficiency:

• Languages I understand well, but still need to practise more (and do so): Croatian1, Czech, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak;
• Languages I understand less well and still need a dictionary or a grammar reference for: German, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Swedish, Turkish;
• Other languages I'm interested in and come back to every once in a while: Arabic (both Modern Standard and some of the dialects, mostly Lebanese at this point), Finnish, (Modern) Hebrew, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovenian;
• Languages I have studied before, but don't use at all: Hindi, Swahili.

Shortcuts for symbols I often use, but don't have on my keyboard:

• … (Ellipsis as a single symbol);
• „” (Quotation marks type 99-99) – for Croatian, Polish and Romanian;
• → (Arrow pointing to the right) – I use it when notifying translators about the changes I've applied to the source lyrics or when suggesting any improvements;
• Āā, Ēē, Īī, Ōō, Ūū (Latin vowels with macrons) – for rōmaji transcriptions of titles or lyrics;
• А̀а̀, Ъ̀ъ̀, О̀о̀, У̀у̀, Ѐѐ, Ѝ, Ю̀ю̀, Я̀я̀ (Cyrillic vowels and semivowels with grave accents) – for indicating stressed syllables in Bulgarian when needed;
• Ǎǎ (Latin Aa with caron) – for transliterating the letter Ъъ in Bulgarian titles;
• Œœ – for French;
• Ăă, Șș, Țț – for Romanian;
• Iı, İ, Ğğ, Şş – for Turkish;
• Ёё, — (Em dash) – for Russian;
• Đđ – for Croatian.

• 1. I'm concentrated on Croatian by default, but may translate Serbian songs sometimes as well.