Mesaĝoj: 25
Lingvo: English
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-17 13:14:04
It could be dealt with here like this:
Ĉiun tagon, post la fermiĝo de la vendejo kaj kiam la muziko ne plu bruis, estis lia kutimo leviĝi kaj reiri al la ponto, sub kiu troviĝas lia dorm-loko, kaj kie salutos lian revenon la aliaj sendomuloj.
Edit: on reflection I now am inclined to view 'Once there, he would' to be a past habit 'would', still under the influence of 'ĉiun tagon'. I would now change the last section to sub kiu troviĝis lia dorm-loko, kaj kie ĉiam salutis lian revenon la aliaj sendomuloj. The attempt to strike a shift in perspective with the juggling of the tenses now seems to me to be over-egging the pudding.
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-18 11:38:12
But the force of the 'would' here in the English sentence seems to me to be a future in the past.
However, both 'dormos' and 'povus dormi' might be perfectly acceptable - Li translokiĝis al hotelo en kiu li dormos (povus dormi) pli trankvile. I might even prefer -us. Ĝi estis tia hotelo en kiu oni povus dormi trankvile.
A simple past 'dormis' would seem imply that his intention was fulfilled - to a hotel in which he got a better night's sleep. But then so might 'kie li dormos pli trankvile'.
In the end it's all a questions of what nuances you feel it is important to preserve in the translation.
I'm not sure how French would handle this. Would 'où il dormira' and 'où il dormirait' both be acceptable?
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-19 20:55:23
Even in my own example about the hotel where he would get a good night's sleep, I find myself vacillating now, on re-reading, about whether this is so clearly future in the past.
EldanarLambetur (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-20 12:09:13
Perhaps I will start collating many tricky "would" examples, and look that them all at once, to see if I can get a better sense of how to handle them.
Vestitor (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-20 13:57:26
"Each day, when the shops shut and the music went away, he would get up and return to the bridge under which he slept. Once there, he would be greeted by the other homeless."
To this:
"Each day, when the shops closed and the music went away, he got up and returned to the bridge under which he slept. Once there he was greeted by the other homeless."
Is not only more direct, it solves the problems of awkward expansion of sentences.
The idea of it being a re-telling of past routine events is already established with "each day" and that the "shops closed" and "the music went away". Note that you didn't write: after the shops had closed" and "the music had gone away", the past tense forms worked there.
Now whether that has exactly the same effect in Esperanto maybe someone else can say.
tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-20 14:53:16
Vestitor:The idea of it being a re-telling of past routine events is already established with "each day"In my view yes, it works equally well in Esperanto, and for the same reason as in English: these phrases are so obviously a re-telling of past routine events, as established right from the beginning with "each day". I see no need at all for any further workarounds.
the past tense forms worked there. Now whether that has exactly the same effect in Esperanto maybe someone else can say.
Here's how I would translate it:
Ĉiun tagon, post kiam la butikoj fermiĝis kaj la muziko ĉesis brui, li leviĝis kaj revenis al la ponto sub kiu li dormis. Kiam tie, lin salutis la aliaj senhejmuloj.
I suppose some might complain that for example "la ponto sub kiu li dormis" could mean not that it was his regular sleeping place, but that he had once slept there at some point previous. And it's true it could mean that, but I doubt anybody would realistically read it that way without sufficiently suggestive context; perhaps if some prior mention had been made of that one-off event.
EldanarLambetur (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-20 15:02:28
Perhaps I have learnt wrong, but the sentence without the "would"s in English, seems to lose all the emphasis I was going for. It's listing habitual actions, and the emphasis comes from stating "each day" and repeating "would". It even feels clunky without the "would" constructions.
Do you have any sources stating its disfavourability? The story is a fantasy parody with a very conversational tone, so if I were writing it in English, I'd probably stick with "would" anyways, but I'm still interested.
EDIT: I have just read (longman grammar of written and spoken english) that, "would" among other modals are used far more (in conversation and fiction) in British English than in American English. So if you're more familiar with the latter, then that's one reason for the difference of understanding perhaps!
tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-20 15:38:22
The Wikipedia page for habitual aspect notes that:
wiki:Habitual aspect is frequently expressed in unmarked form in English, as in "I walked to work every day for ten years"If we had "I walked to work." that simple past tense phrase may well be interpreted as a one-off event. But add "every day for ten years" and you get a past habitual that is, in my view, just as clear as Vestitor's "Each day he got up...".
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-20 22:45:24
The problem is pinning that down in a particular sentence - which isn't made easy by the multiplicity of uses of 'would' in English.
1. Froggie would a wooing go.
2. Later that year, he would be killed in a car accident.
3. When I was a child, we would spend all day on the beach.
4. He was asked if he would like to see the menu first.
It is not all clear to me that 'would' is redundant in sentences with an additional explicit marker of repetition like 'often', 'most days', 'every day'
Vestitor (Montri la profilon) 2012-aŭgusto-21 02:14:17
sudanglo:The above example is precisely the same as the one in question. It's definitely not redundant, but it is clumsy for prose fiction and I only see it used, as you have used it, as reminiscing in a first-person narrative. Eldanar's is (if I am right) a third-person narrative. or it may be second-person?
3. When I was a child, we would spend all day on the beach.
It is not all clear to me that 'would' is redundant in sentences with an additional explicit marker of repetition like 'often', 'most days', 'every day'
In any case conversational tone could have some variants like: 'When I was a child, we used to spend all day on the beach'. I do understand the nuance of using 'would', but it seems to me that it's not a really irreplaceable word in that usage and nothing is lost by re-wording and simplification.