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Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game

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Re: Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game

#21

Post by lostmyoldone »

howard941 wrote: post #13
tonetheman wrote: post #7

That is a great read/translate.

Didn't it read as if translated by a native English speaker? I thought so too. Amazingly adept/scary, with only one really tiny niggle exception for the quoted "Uff" that transliterates better than it translates.

The structure of the English was very good, but there was a few places where it seemed to translate Norwegian as if it was Swedish, and quite a few places where it seemed to "guess" what a word meant.

In most cases it didn't loose much of the meaning, but the sentence translated as "It was even nicer that Mats himself, who was lying in the white coffin, had not met these people either." should be translated more like: "Even stranger was that Mats himself ..." or possibly "The only thing more strange was ..." Not fluent in Norwegian so I don't know for sure. But as a Swedish speaker I'm well aware that "rar" ( stem of rarere ) is not translated as nice, as it's one of the more common causes for miscommunication with out western neighbors. In Norwegian "rar" a false cognate with the Swedish "rar", which actually means nice. However, they likely also share common etymological roots, so are cognate and false cognate with each other simultaneously.

Re: Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game

#22

Post by TomVDB »

NegatioN wrote: post #8

I was a bit apprehensive about posting a google translated article, as some parts may be slightly off, so it's great to see some people enjoyed it despite that. It's originally written by Norway's national broadcasting (NRK), and since the art/pictures don't seem to be included in the translated version, here's the original link for anyone who wants to check it out: https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/forst-da-mats-var-…

After seeing your comment here, it’s not clear why some sentences were broken. But I never realized that it was an auto-translated text. Incredible.

Very nice article. Thanks for posting.

Re: Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game

#23

Post by schoen »

lostmyoldone wrote: post #21
howard941 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't it read as if translated by a native English speaker? I thought so too. Amazingly adept/scary, with only one really tiny niggle exception for the quoted "Uff" that transliterates better than it translates.

The structure of the English was very good, but there was a few places where it seemed to translate Norwegian as if it was Swedish, and quite a few places where it seemed to "guess" what a word meant. In most cases it didn't loose much of the meaning, but the sentence translated as "It was even nicer that Mats himself, who was lying in the white coffin, had not met these people either." should be translated more like…

It's amazing to see what's happened to English "nice" itself over the history of the word https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nice

I think technically in the case you describe the two words are true cognates, but with different meanings. Cognate means that they share an etymology, not necessarily that they share an etymology and a present-day meaning. Wikipedia distinguishes false friends from false cognates this way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend

Re: Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game

#24

Post by [deleted] »

kubakan wrote: post #2

“I - or Rumor, then - acted a little on impulse; jumped out of the bushes and snatched the hat off Ibelin. Stay silent for a moment, we looked at each other. Then I ran away with his hat, without thought for where I ran, says Lisette and smiles.” You can’t do that in the game.

[deleted]

Re: Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game

#26

Post by Syrawenn »

Thank you for translating. I am one of those players in Starlight and good gods, do we ever miss Mats. I am happy more people might read this and realize that online games that promote social interaction open up a world of possibilities for people who might otherwise not have that option. Of course there's always the other side of the coin. Of course the news likes to focus on problems, but THIS is the side of the coin that truly matters: friendships forged, lives enriched through a game in which distance no longer matters.
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