Languages again (Fw: Verba Volant 29-MAY-2002)

[Artur Ferreira da Silva]

At 20:30 29-05-2002 -0400, Joelle Lyons Everett wrote:
>Artur--
>
>Thanks for the reference to this site.  I am humbled by the number of
>languages included--and I think they only have covered Romance and Germanic
>languages.

The dialects included are mainly from Italy and France, Joelle. Not so much
from Germany. But if you liked the site maybe you are interested in this small
comment I made for a different purpose. I am not a translator, as you know.
But I can understand some Latin languages and I understant that to translate
is always very difficult and quite often the translation is wrong...

So, in what refers to this small point:

>Italian - (...) ottusi e noiosi imbecilli (...)

"ottusi" and "noiosi" are adjectives that qualify the name "imbecilli"
(and they are all masculin-plural as they end with an "i" - an interesting
feature of Italian ;-)

the English translation is correct:

>English - (...) dull and boring imbeciles (..)

But the Portuguese and Spanish ones are wrong because all the words
appear as names:

>Portuguese - (...) obtusos, aborrecidos e imbecis (...)

>Spanish - (...) obtusos, aburridos e imbéciles (...)

(see the "e" (and) in the wrong place)

and the correct Portuguese translation (in this case done by a Brasilian) is

>Brazilian Portuguese - (...) obtusos e chatos imbecis (..)

that could also be writen "imbecis obtusos e chatos" but not "imbecis, obtusos
e chatos"... (see the "coma")

And the French translation is an interesting "interpretation" of the text
but not
really a translation - "hors de ce quadre" was not in the original (but was
implicit)
and one adjective is missing.

>French - (...)  hors de ce cadre, de barbants imbéciles (...)

Have a nice day

Artur

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