Week 1: Aliens

For week 2, please upload your translation of the following two paragraphs:

At the level of the leaves and petals, Hungary looks foreign enough to tourists to justify their visit. The churches are yellow, with spires that sit on cushions; and public buildings are distinctive, in a cluttered neo-classical, art deco, baroque sort of way – but to most westerners, the country will not seem exotic. Hungarians look and dress and behave like most Frenchmen, or Germans, or Poles; they have cafés and cars, and bookshops and theatres, and houses with gardens and flats without, and roads and pavements, and water-taps and light-switches. Hungary is a recognisably European country – and this is precisely as Hungarians want it to be.

Visitors who stay a few days in the country, though, begin to notice things that are different, and the more things they notice that are different, the more they might wonder whether these differences are systematic, and whether they may signal other more fundamental differences below the level of the leaves and petals. Take the above examples of water-taps and light-switches: I asked a young woman who had just returned from her first visit to Britain what she had noticed about the way we do things that was different from the way she was used to. ‘The taps,’ she said, immediately; ‘you have two taps, one on each side of the basin, one hot and one cold. We have only one, for hot and cold.’ I had to think about this: was it true? Then I realised that I was missing the point: it was true for this young woman; it was what she had noticed, and, as far as she was concerned, it was odd.