English as She Is Spoke • Hacker News Board

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#101

Post by dumb1224 » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

hashmush wrote: post #87

TonyTrapp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an explanation, but I know enough people who are convinced that they actually speak proper English, but most of the time it turns into grammatical gibberish, and they fail to realize that even when you point it out. If you're one of those people and think you are up for the job, and noone else proof-reads what you are actually doing... maybe this would result in this kind of instruction manual?

A Chinese guy I knew was studying for the TOEFL test and was memorizing all kinds of medical terms I'd never heard about, and yet, when he said goodbye he'd also say "I go first". At that time I had no idea why he did it, but as I learned more Mandarin it became clear that he just translated the phrase 我先走 (lit. I first go) which is very common when parting ways. Point being, many study for tests but can't speak Engl…

"many study for tests but can't speak English." This is definitely true at least from my student days a long long while ago. However that particular perception, that english learners tend to translate what sounds natural in their language to an English equivalent, is a bit of a mystery to me.

I don't want to sound bragging, but I never translate languages in my head. If I do that it will feel like the equivalent of database searching with a query, I feel exhausted if I have to look for something phrase by phrase (or matching). I admit that when I'm writing or organising thoughts I have to go over words so searching does happen.

Obviously it is down to personal experiences...

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#102

Post by berdario » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #81

tim333 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they tend to be more expensive and thin in the ground in mainland China - Hong Kongers or native English speakers. That said Google translate does quite a decent job.

You need at least one person with at least basic English knowledge to know that the Chinese translation service is bad. (Google is blocked, remember.)

There are plenty of countries in which Google is not blocked, but knowledge of English is still relatively rare.

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#103

Post by SECProto » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

joshspankit wrote: post #89

yongjik wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the skeptical camp when it comes to literal translations - I don't think it shows the "mind" of the source language. If anything, I think it has the opposite effect of losing the forest in search of trees, or making phrases unnecessarily more "exotic" than they originally are. E.g., if I say in Korean that I've become "green onion kimchi", I'm not picturing green onion kimchi in my mind. (I don't even particul…

In cases like that it would be up to me as the fascinated viewer to dig in to those idioms. It would be helped with a translator’s notes of course, but I would expect it to take a little extra time and effort to watch a show like that. At the end in your example, I feel like I would have a deeper understanding of kimchi as it relates to Korean speakers, how “green onion kimchi” is different, and why that means someon…

> At the end in your example, I feel like I would have a deeper understanding of kimchi as it relates to Korean speakers, how “green onion kimchi” is different, and why that means someone is dead tired.

Picture this situation in reverse. If you were instead a Korean person, digging in to why Americans associate cats and dogs with heavy rain? Or why English speakers eat butterflies before they do something on stage?

Learning idioms is useful and interesting, but I agree with the other commenter that you shouldn't look to an idiom to gain cultural insight.

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#104

Post by dwighttk » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

lqet wrote: post #98

Raesan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is! I’ve been watching a bunch of Asian TV shows lately and I’ve seen that phrase crop up in both Thai and Taiwanese shows. I had the same question so I asked a friend who’s Thai about it. She said it’s equivalent to “I should get going”, “I’m going to head out”, or something of that nature.

Wait, so it's more "I go now" than "I go first"?

Well the other person hasn’t gone.

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#105

Post by goodcanadian » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

lqet wrote: post #90

hashmush wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chinese guy I knew was studying for the TOEFL test and was memorizing all kinds of medical terms I'd never heard about, and yet, when he said goodbye he'd also say "I go first". At that time I had no idea why he did it, but as I learned more Mandarin it became clear that he just translated the phrase 我先走 (lit. I first go) which is very common when parting ways. Point being, many study for tests but can't speak Engl…

Is "I go first" a correct translation? If so, why is it used? As an excuse that you have to leave earlier than the person you have been with? Or to avoid that uncomfortable situation where both parties aren't sure if it is time to leave, and are just standing around awkwardly?

When you see these things in foreign languages, it may seem odd. However, if you look at the origins of words and phrases in English, it is also full of odd expressions. It is just that you are used to them.

Take "welcome."[1] Well come. You've arrived well. You make a good entrance? Not a ridiculous thing to say when someone arrives.

What about in response to "Thank you?" You are welcome.[2] Huh? What does that mean?

Or, "you are welcome to take a second cookie." How does that translate into "I do not mind if you take a second cookie?"

[1] Welcome translates quite literally in other European languages. For example, in French, it is bienvenue - bien: well - venu: came.

[2] On the other hand, it is much more common to say de rien (in French) or de nada (in Spanish): literally, "it's nothing."

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#106

Post by howlgarnish » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

hermitcrab wrote: post #75

I have never understood why Chinese companies often have such hilariously bad English translations of their product instructions. Often the product quality is pretty good and the illustrations in the instructions are fine. But the English translation is terrible. There must be millions of Chinese people that speak decent English (in Hong Kong alone).

They just put the text in a local equivalent to Google Translate and that's it, no proofreading etc. There's a famous restaurant sign in China that says "Translation server error" on it: https://www.seriouseats.com/2008/07/translate-server-error-r...

There was an early translation program in China that was both popular and notoriously bad. For example, the simplified character 干 has a number of meanings, most commonly "dry", but the program would always pick "fuck" -- the end result being supermarket aisles with signs saying "Fuck Goods" and restaurants offering dishes like "Duck Fuck Noodles". Engrish.com (sic) has a whole category for these:

https://www.engrish.com/category/adult-engrish/

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#107

Post by js2 » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

henrikschroder wrote: post #52

joshspankit wrote: post #27

I hope this is not too off-topic, but I really wish there were more (excellent) “literal translations”. Yes: it would be tricky and unpalatable for much of the audience, but I personally find it fascinating to get in to the “mind” of a language and would like the opportunity without having to memorize (something I find particularly challenging) the “words” of a language. Movie and TV subtitles especially.

I've spent a considerable amount subtitling a TV series, and there were subtitles floating around for it before I started, but they contained a ton of bad English; wrong idioms, and wrong word order. But when I did my translation, I tried to stick to the word order and expressions of the original language when possible . You could translate each sentence to the most likely way an English-speaking person would express…

There's multiple translations of the closing dialog in Breathless. (Of course, even the English title isn't a literal translation of À bout de souffle—that would be Out of Breath.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathless_(1960_film)#Closi...

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#108

Post by hi41 » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

As an Indian who is currently living in USA, how do I talk English like the white people? I try but fall short and my jokes are an embarrassment. I dream of one day talking like the white people. But my existence is lonely as no white person invite me home.

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#109

Post by joshspankit » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

SECProto wrote: post #103

joshspankit wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cases like that it would be up to me as the fascinated viewer to dig in to those idioms. It would be helped with a translator’s notes of course, but I would expect it to take a little extra time and effort to watch a show like that. At the end in your example, I feel like I would have a deeper understanding of kimchi as it relates to Korean speakers, how “green onion kimchi” is different, and why that means someon…

> At the end in your example, I feel like I would have a deeper understanding of kimchi as it relates to Korean speakers, how “green onion kimchi” is different, and why that means someone is dead tired. Picture this situation in reverse. If you were instead a Korean person, digging in to why Americans associate cats and dogs with heavy rain? Or why English speakers eat butterflies before they do something on stage? L…

Maybe I’m the odd one out, but as a native english speaker I also find english idioms to be interesting and to speak volumes about the person saying them.

“Raining cats and dogs” I had not looked up before, but I don’t hear it much currently so I would likely associate it with someone of a specific older age range, or someone younger who’s been around (or who is emulating) older people. Even that small inference brings some depth to understanding what someone is saying, and the character of the person saying it.

As for “butterflies in my stomach”, that’s even more important as it’s a tactile expression, describing the feeling of nerves as though there were literal butterflies fluttering lightly in one’s stomach. The fact that at some point an english speaker decided to express the internal feeling as though it was something tangible that other people around them were familiar with, that’s (imo) some pretty fascinating cultural context and something that I see repeated throughout english. I also suspect that it happens in many (but importantly not all) other languages/cultures, which is also pretty fascinating.

Re: English as She Is Spoke

#110

Post by coldpie » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

howlgarnish wrote: post #23

codazoda wrote: post #13

Now I wonder, was the poorly translated game translated that way on purpose? From memory: > Someone set us up the bomb! > Make your time, ha ha ha.

That would be Zero Wing of "All your base are belong to us" fame, and no, that was just a bad translation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us Random anecdote: in 2005, when "all your base" was still in peak meme, I happened to be in Kuta Square in Bali with a friend when Jemaah Islamiyah blew up one of their devices. Rattled but unharmed and unclear on what exactly had just happened, we retu…

There's a great discussion of what a proper translation of Zero Wing might have been like here: https://legendsoflocalization.com/lets-take-a-peek-at-zero-w...