English - no problem

araknoid · Post by **araknoid** » November 16th, 2007, 11:56 pm

So this is what the topic is about. All those differences that cannot be easily translated from your native language into english, origami-related or not.

For me it's mainly two things.

The constant use of the i: I think, I want, etc. In italian the I is not used, and when I'm (grrr) writing in english it feels like I want to say I I I like a donkey or that prisoner TV show. Horrible.

The word "simpatico". comes from the greek, means roughly with-feeling (sun-pathos). We use it here a lot to mean a carefree, easy-going personality, but in a friendly way,meaning also "I like him/her/it", or "it's nice, light, I'd like to spend some time talking to/about him/her/etc." Nice is too detached as a meaning for translating simpatico.

Galif · Post by **Galif** » November 17th, 2007, 2:29 am

Great topic, araknoid

!

I have no personal problems using "I", but for me it seems useless the fact that one needs to write it using upper-case... well, at least if you want to do it the right way.

In Portuguese-Brazillian we have the word "simpático" too

!

According to BBC London, our "saudade" is considered the 7th hardest word to translate. Roughly put, it refers to the feeling of "missing something, wanting it to come back". This "something" can be virtually anything, from objects to people. We use it in a lot of different ways and cultural expressions, so it's usually really hard for a foreigner to understand the different meanings =P!

qtrollip · Post by **qtrollip** » November 17th, 2007, 3:04 am

I like this topic.
English is my second language also. We have to have English at school for 12 years!!! So my English is not bad, but I do sympathise with those on this forum whose English is not very good. It also irritates me that some people get rude when replying to some posts where there are small/irrelevant language mistakes!!!
Anyway, Galif, can you post a link to that BBC article describing words difficult to translate? It sounds interesting. Thank you

Galif · Post by **Galif** » November 17th, 2007, 2:22 pm

I couldn't find the link to the BBC article... anyway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

http://www.todaytranslations.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm

HankSimon · Post by **HankSimon** » November 17th, 2007, 7:09 pm

As an American who speaks only one language, sometimes I feel left out of the rich world culture that comes across in other languages. Let me ask two translation questions:

1. I think of "simpatico" as being 'easy-going' ... like the stereotype of a California surfer - friendly and living in the moment.

2. I've never run across of saudade. Don't hear much Portuguese in Texas

How close is the Wikipedia "translation" to "nostalgic" ?

How far off are those translations?

- Hank Simon

araknoid · Post by **araknoid** » November 17th, 2007, 8:56 pm

simpatico for sure can include easy-going, but could also be used for cute, not harmful, and ironic... all in the same idea!
as for saudade i also thought about nostalgia... but seems too sad at a first glance... maybe music can help to understand that word

Galif · Post by **Galif** » November 18th, 2007, 2:35 am

Hum... "saudade" it's not necessarily a bad feeling. And it certainly doesn't mean "nostalgia". I don't know how I could explain the real meaning, it's so abstract... well, after all, it's the 7th hardest word to translate =P!

Nostalgic · Post by **Nostalgic** » February 9th, 2008, 12:15 pm

My language is English and my french is ok-ish.

Thing for me is I am super lazy at typing correctly. I think this comes from having spelling and grammer checks on the internet. I never learnt typing at school so I let the computer fix the rest when I am at work (I send emails to customers 8 hours a day)

It is lazy I know and sometimes I make the effort but it is a habit now.
I think it is the way we learn now. I don't know anyone my age (27) who can caculate with out a caculator. How often do you write hand written letters these days?

I think it's easy to fall into a lazy typing habit (not excusing myself though

)

::edit:: Plus i didn't stay at school long enough to learn grammer etc. I even still get cofused with things like "its" or "it"s" and "to" or "too"

I would seriously be out of a job if it wasn't for grammer and spell check

I would like to take classes in this one day but I am to busy at the moment

Post by **TheRealChris** » February 9th, 2008, 5:28 pm

I think there's a big difference between beeing lazy and not knowing. I mean if you write a sentence like "i loke yoour dRawing" it's somehow an insult to me. trying to type in an accaptable way shows respect to the reader. if you don't know how to write a word and are too lazy to check the spelling it's ok to me.
although my mother-tongue is german, I'm pretty familiar with the english language out of some reasons. but what somethimes really confuses me is, belive it or not, counting. I often twist numbers because german counting is slightly different from english counting. the number 176 would be "one hundred six and seventy" in german and "one hundred and seventy four" in english.
german: 176 = 106+70
english: 176 = 170+6
I found myself doing that mistake pretty often when I do phonecalls abroad.
away from that I'm pretty satisfied with my english skills

Adam · Post by **Adam** » February 9th, 2008, 5:46 pm

Hmm, 174 = 176?

In my opinion the French way of counting is the strangest of the lot. 94 is "Four Twenty Fourteen", for example.

By the way, usually when I'm not sure how to write a word I just type it in at google.com and see whether google corrects me or not.

edit:: If you're interested in learning a difficult language you should try Polish. Its words can be divided into 5 'genders' and it has 7 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. I'm absolutely rubbish at writing things in Polish, but due to my Polish origin I can speak Polish.

Post by **TheRealChris** » February 9th, 2008, 7:01 pm

you're the winner of my "who can spot the mistake" contest

Post by **origami_8** » February 9th, 2008, 7:19 pm

Yes, counting can be a problem. When I read an English text aloud to my friend, I always say the numbers in German. I don't know why but I need longer to translate them than the rest of the text. Maybe it's the fact that the written symbol is the same whereas the remaining words are looking different.

It's very nice of Firefox that it has an included spell check

Nostalgic · Post by **Nostalgic** » February 10th, 2008, 3:18 pm

The french numbers are weird. I'm ok up to 69 then I get confused and really have to think about it.

69= sixty nine
79 = sixty nineteen

82 = four, twenty, two
92 = four, twenty, twelve

JeossMayhem · Post by **JeossMayhem** » February 13th, 2008, 10:31 pm

I've been studying Japanese for about four years... Though I learned the alphabet(s) a long time ago.
Learning numbers in Japanese (borrowed from Chinese) is a pain for me... In English, every three places has a new name: Thousands, millions, billions, trillions, etc.. In Japanese it's complex and mathematical. If you want to say "three million", it's "san byaku man" (san=3, byaku=100, man=10,000, hence, 3x100x10000 = 3,000,000). Thirty millon is the same but it's "san zen man" (3x1000x10000=30,000,000). Guh, what a pain, haha.

ahudson · Post by **ahudson** » February 14th, 2008, 3:26 am

Adam wrote: If you're interested in learning a difficult language you should try Polish. Its words can be divided into 5 'genders' and it has 7 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. I'm absolutely rubbish at writing things in Polish, but due to my Polish origin I can speak Polish.

Finnish has 15 noun cases! I haven't talked to anybody who has learned finnish, but I've read a little bit about it and it sounds confusing.

I'd also like to point out that I see native speakers make mistakes in english just as often as anybody else. And also, you can tell where somebody's from based on the pattern of mistakes they make, which I find very interesting.

But seriously, you guys do a great job with English. I know the hardest thing for a lot of people is all the exceptions that english has. English is originally a germanic language, but has borrowed a lot from french, Latin, Spanish, and just about everything else in Europe. As a consequence, there are all sorts of spelling and grammar oddities that make it very hard to cope with, unless you have a phenomenal memory.