Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

latin.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 328 posts

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#81

Post by hoseja »

messe wrote: post #64
ChrisRR wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wondered what google translate would make of a dead language so I tried those phrases. Neither of them seem even close, so (as I don't speak Latin) I don't know whether the issue lies in google translate, the complexity of what's being portrayed, whether the phrases are too idiomatic, or whether these idioms would require context around them to translate correctly. "nimium valedīxit": He got too sick "totiēns valed…

ChatGPT does well (I gave it the additional info that the subject was female, but that will only change whether it chooses the pronoun he or she): totiēns valedīxit: She said goodbye so many times. nimium valedīxit: She said goodbye too much https://chat.openai.com/share/6d564b0a-c613-4411-a656-735cd9...

The subject is encoded in the verb, as stated.

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#82

Post by bitdivision »

Mostly unrelated, but there was a study [0] some time ago which said that the information rate of all languages was roughly the same. So if a language had more data conveyed per syllable, then it might be spoken slower for instance.

0: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#83

Post by jdmichal »

alcover wrote: post #22
dTal wrote: post #7

People wondering why this is on Hacker News - probably the fascinating part is how a relatively complex 7 word phrase in English translates idiomatically into a 2 word phrase in Latin.

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.

I'm just a hobby linguist, but I believe research has generally shown that speech information density is relatively fixed. Languages with more complex syllabic structures end up speaking slower, but they can also code more information.

https://www.science.org/content/article/human-speech-may-hav...

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#84

Post by mbg721 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #15

Yes, latin crams more meaning into each word (gender, tense ect) but that doesnt make it superior, rather different. English is generally short than french, but french remains the more exacting and clear language for communicating specific ideas.

A side effect of that cramming is that word order doesn't affect meaning as much as in e.g. English, which makes poetry and wordplay different.

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#85

Post by self_awareness »

sznio wrote: post #74
self_awareness wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

polish 7 (8) - Zbyt często się (już) żegnała Although it's possible to drop "się" if we don't care about the response to the woman, so i.e. she could write a letter with goodbyes, not caring/not receiving the response back: 7 - Za często już żegnała

that's more like "she's been saying goodbye too often" the "before" at the end throws me off. I don't think there's an correct tense to properly get this across in Polish. "Kiedyś żegnała się zbyt często"? "Często" also kinda applies to frequency in time, not count, so a literal "zbyt wiele razy" feels better.

I feel like "she'd been saying goodbye too often" is "zbyt często żegnała", but adding "zbyt często już żegnała" is like "she'd been saying goodbye too often, but now she's fed up with saying goodbyes, and doesn't do that anymore".

Of course "Kiedyś żegnała się zbyt często" is more explicit and understandable, but not as efficient for this competition :)

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#87

Post by tail_exchange »

alcover wrote: post #46

syllable 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…

You can reduce "demasiadamente" to just "demais". I realized later that I was being silly. That would be 7 syllables.

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#88

Post by notpushkin »

alcover wrote: post #22
dTal wrote: post #7

People wondering why this is on Hacker News - probably the fascinating part is how a relatively complex 7 word phrase in English translates idiomatically into a 2 word phrase in Latin.

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.

Finally, my favourite pastime: natural language golfing!

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#89

Post by yieldcrv »

alcover wrote: post #22
dTal wrote: post #7

People wondering why this is on Hacker News - probably the fascinating part is how a relatively complex 7 word phrase in English translates idiomatically into a 2 word phrase in Latin.

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.

Hackersnews don’t have to be programming or tech

Re: How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?

#90

Post by masswerk »

tgv wrote: post #60
efficax wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chatgpt is no cicero

Illa doesn't even mean "she", and I see no other use for it in the translation. But my Latin is very rusty.

Mine shows some serious oxidation, too, but, if I'd go with this, at all, I'd prefer, "saepe valere dixit illa antea nimis"

(I guess, "saepe" is really a bit luxurious here, while I can see the need for expressing, even emphasizing the gender related aspect.)

Post reply on HN