Is that a way an actual native speaker would phrase it, or is it just Latin golf that would sound out of place?
How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
181–190 of 328 posts
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yes! It touches language and compression, both dear subjects to programmers. If the accepted answer stands, that's remarkable. I wonder how one could measure a language efficiency. Maybe syllable count ? But one would need a sort of assembly to translate to and verify that a sentence computes the intended information.
If you translate it back into English, “she had said goodbye too much”, it’s clear that the real question is, “did the author mean something by those choices which the translation obliterated?” Translation is a process which both erases information and introduces new information. Any comparison of languages which tries to evaluate which languages are more compact has to work with some assumptions about what informati…
For example, the closing dialogue of the French movie À bout de souffle ("Out of breath" but given the English title Breathless) is difficult to translate to English because of the ambiguous use of "dégueulasse".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathless_(1960_film)#Closing...
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that there are complex concepts that translate to a single syllable in some languages but requires a lot of context or explanation in other languages. Would these be "single instructions" or multiple? Then when you really break it down, many concepts are used grammatically but are not required based on their context. Should you count that as extraneous or not? An example is that some languages use a ca…
> single syllable in some languages but requires a lot of context or explanation in other languages then don't these other langs do a 'bad job' at compression ? > That doesn't seem feasible In general maybe not. But for some restricted 'assembly' ? "The cat is on the table" has no ambiguity. And in some langs like Polish it compresses better : "Kot jest na stole" (Cat is on table), same info, better syllable-wise com…
Different languages "compress" different things depending on what was needed. The Qin emperor did not know of limited liability companies, due to the concept being invented several hundred years later in Europe, so Chinese writes "有限责任公司" where an English speaker would write "ltd."
Kanji look very compressed, and can convey a lot in a single character, but if there isn't one for your needs things can get ugly. Whereas English speakers find it much easier to borrow, shorten, abbreviate, or make up words for convenience.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#184The original English is ungrammatical, or at least incomplete; it helps a bit if you start from grammatical English. So first alter it to "She HAD said goodbye too many times before". Then it's essier to translate correctly.
That would be the past perfect tense, a different tense with a different meaning that is only used in the context of another past event you're talking about. The original quote is simple past tense and is correct.
You could also use the present perfect, "she has said goodbye too many times before", which sounds slightly better to me, but is again a different tense and implies the goodbye-saying is an ongoing phenomenon. If it's all in the past, this tense would be wrong.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#185I think you can achieve the same "compression" in other latin languages. In portuguese, you may be able to translate this as "despedira-se demais" or "despediu-se demais" (despediu-se = she said goodbye, despedira-se = pluperfect form of she said goodbye, demais = too many times).
You lost the gender of the person though, which from my understanding is preserved in Latin with a verb suffix.
How very postmodern.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#186I think you can achieve the same "compression" in other latin languages. In portuguese, you may be able to translate this as "despedira-se demais" or "despediu-se demais" (despediu-se = she said goodbye, despedira-se = pluperfect form of she said goodbye, demais = too many times).
You lost the gender of the person though, which from my understanding is preserved in Latin with a verb suffix.
I think you got that wrong, "valedixit" is just third person perfect, "he/she/it said goodbye", the verb suffix does not encode gender.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#187Is that a way an actual native speaker would phrase it, or is it just Latin golf that would sound out of place?
That's what the question is trying to figure out
Actual native speakers are all dead. It's poetry, not conversational. The answers looked to poets.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spanish: Despidiose excesivamente. 10
Does this not lack the ' before then ' nuance ?
It doesn't. "Despidió" is already past tense. That said, "despidiose", while valid, is quite archaic. If it was me, I'd say "se despidió demasiado" or even "se despidió de más"
Edit: Reading the meaning of the song, I'd say "dijo adios demasiadas veces", as it stays closer to the original meaning.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yes! It touches language and compression, both dear subjects to programmers. If the accepted answer stands, that's remarkable. I wonder how one could measure a language efficiency. Maybe syllable count ? But one would need a sort of assembly to translate to and verify that a sentence computes the intended information.
If you translate it back into English, “she had said goodbye too much”, it’s clear that the real question is, “did the author mean something by those choices which the translation obliterated?” Translation is a process which both erases information and introduces new information. Any comparison of languages which tries to evaluate which languages are more compact has to work with some assumptions about what informati…
Digging into "She said goodbye too many times before" versus "She said goodbye too many times", the "before" in the first implies that She is saying goodbye now.
I'm not sure if the Latin translation as it is captures that, or if you'd go for something more like "valedīxisse nimium valedīxit", "she said goodbye having said goodbye too much"; I kind of like that because then you're saying goodbye twice in the same line.
Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?
#190syllable count english 10 - She said goodbye too many times before latin 6 - nimium valedīxit polish 7 - Zbyt często się żegnała german 10 - Sie hat sich schon zu oft verabschiedet french 11 - Elle a dit au revoir trop souvent avant italian 12 - Ha detto addio troppe volte prima portuguese 11 - despedira-se demasiadamente (user tail_exchange) 14 - Ela despediu-se demasiadas vezes antes (deepl) nb: the target sentence…
If you cheat a little, you can get to similarly low numbers in German: "Zuviele Abschiede von ihr" - 8 "Ihre zuvielen Abschiede" - 8 "[Sie] verabschiedete sich zu oft" - 8-9 If you accept "trennen" ("separate") for "saying goodbye", you can do "[Sie] trennte sich zu oft" - 5-6 If you accept "[weg]gehen" (go [away]) for "saying goodbye", you can also do "[Sie] ging zu oft [weg]" - 3-5 The "Sie" (she) is optional, but…
If you cheat a little you’d say “she said goodbye too many times” and leave before implied in English also. But then the song wouldn’t sound as good.