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Translation help, please?

di jasperholden, 04 novembre 2012

Messaggi: 11

Lingua: English

jasperholden (Mostra il profilo) 04 novembre 2012 05:01:42

Hi,

I am translating a few English early readers for my son (and me as well), as we are learning Esperanto together and he needs something at a very low level. I understand enough Esperanto to get most of the sentences with the help of dictionaries and online translations (and to see when they are clearly wrong), but there are a few that I am not sure of. If anyone could comment on the accuracy or lack thereof of any of these, I would be grateful.

He paints something big. / Li pentras grandan ion.

The boy's brush is not as big as the bear's. / La broso de la knabo ne estas tiel granda kiel tiu, de la urso.

They are pleased. / Ili estas placxita.

"Take the day off," we tell her. / “Prenu la liberan tagon,” ni diras al ŝi.

Soon it's time for Ginger's bath. I turn on the water. / Baldaŭ estas la tempon por la bano de Ginger. Mi malfermas la akvon.

The faucet is stuck! / La krano estas fiksiĝita!

The laundry [ie. clothing that needs to be washed] is next. / La lavotaĵoj venas poste.

Being in charge is hard work. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" says Mom. / Mastrumi estas malfacila laboro. “Kial vi ne prenos libera la cetera de la tago?” diras Panjo.

Julie

hebda999 (Mostra il profilo) 04 novembre 2012 08:54:13

He paints something big. / Li pentras ion grandan.

The boy's brush is not as big as the bear's. / La knaba broso ne estas tiel granda kiel la ursa.

They are pleased. / Ili estas kontentaj.

"Take the day off," we tell her. / “Prenu la liberan tagon,” ni diras al ŝi.

Soon it's time for Ginger's bath. I turn on the water. / Baldaŭ estas la tempo por la bano de Ginger. Mi enverŝas la akvon.

The faucet is stuck! / La krano estas ŝtopita!

The laundry [ie. clothing that needs to be washed] is next. / La lavaĵoj venas poste.

Being in charge is hard work. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" says Mom. / Estri estas malfacila laboro. “Kial vi ne prenos la reston de la tago libera?” diras Panjo.

opalo (Mostra il profilo) 04 novembre 2012 09:23:14

Hello! I've looked through them too.

He paints something big. / Li pentras ion grandan.
(Emphasis on the bigness.)

The boy's brush is not as big as the bear's. / La broso de la knabo ne estas tiel granda, kiel tiu de la urso.
(I moved the comma.)

They are pleased. / Ili estas plaĉitaj.
(Plural.)

"Take the day off," we tell her. / “Prenu ferion (hodiaŭ),” ni diras al ŝi.
(Libera tago, libertempo is okay, but there's a shorter word.)

Soon it's time for Ginger's bath. I turn on the water. / Baldaŭ estas la tempo por la bano de Ginger. Mi elkranas la akvon.
(Estas is nominative on both sides. I wouldn't object to malfermas.)

The faucet is stuck! / La krano estas fiksiĝita!
(Yes. Ŝtopita means "clogged" and might be the opposite of what you want.)

The laundry is next. / La lavotaĵoj sekvas.
(Venas poste is vaguer: "comes later".)

Being in charge is hard work. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" says Mom. / Mastrumi estas malfacila laboro. “Ĉu vi feriu dum la cetero de la tago?” diras Panjo.
(I made it more a suggestion than a genuine question.)

orthohawk (Mostra il profilo) 04 novembre 2012 13:58:21

hebda999:
The boy's brush is not as big as the bear's. / La knaba broso ne estas tiel granda kiel la ursa.
.
Not quite. A knaba broso is more like a "boy brush" i.e. used specifically for a boy (maybe it's the "manly looking" brush his daddy uses as opposed to the pink "girly" one his mom uses ridulo.gif ) I would tend to think of an ursa broso as a brush made of bear bristles or as above, a brush used on a bear. Like a kata broso would be the brush you used to brush your cat. Not many people use the same brush on their own hair as the one they use to brush their cat ridulo.gif
There is a avant garde-ish way of saying what I think you had in mind, but it's highly irregular (not in the sense that it doesn't follow the rules but that it's.......outre): la knabes broso; la urses.
I daresay most Esperantists (especially our own Erinja ridulo.gif ) would out and out say that was wrong, but I kinda like it (although I don't use it myself).

erinja (Mostra il profilo) 04 novembre 2012 20:56:52

orthohawk:
There is a avant garde-ish way of saying what I think you had in mind, but it's highly irregular (not in the sense that it doesn't follow the rules but that it's.......outre): la knabes broso; la urses.
I daresay most Esperantists (especially our own Erinja ridulo.gif ) would out and out say that was wrong, but I kinda like it (although I don't use it myself).
Yes, it's out and out wrong. The correlatives are a closed system; you can't take apart the -es and put it on a word outside the correlative system, any more than you could take the ki- part out and put it on a word outside the correlatives. That would open the door to forms such as *kihomo, to mean "which person".

So... putting -es on a noun isn't just creative reinterpretation of the rules, it is, in fact, simply wrong.

hebda999 (Mostra il profilo) 05 novembre 2012 07:54:20

erinja:That would open the door to forms such as *kihomo, to mean "which person".
That's an interesting idea, worth considering:

kiloke? = in which place? okulumo.gif

Scalex (Mostra il profilo) 05 novembre 2012 23:39:05

"Take the day off," we tell her. / “Prenu la liberan tagon,” ni diras al ŝi.
"Prenu" strikes me as not making sense here. I'd go for one of the following:

Ne plu laboru ĉi-tage
Ĉesu labori por hodiaŭ
Vi ripozu dum la cetero de la tago

Or something similar.
To use "preni" in this context seems like an anglicism to me.

Edit: Of course, if you wanted a less literal translation, you could just say "Ripozu nun" for "take the day off" - it'd be implied by context and common sense that it's referring to today's work, or the task at hand.

eric_vandenburg (Mostra il profilo) 06 novembre 2012 08:44:09

General Question concerning the above discussion: Is it true that there's nothing in Eo like the English apostrophe for creating possessive nouns?

It seems to me so far like Esperanto exclusively follows the French way - a few possessive pronouns ( via, ties, ilia ktp ) and for everything else use 'de' to indicate possession : "Charles' shirt" --> "la ĉemizo de Karlo." Is this correct?

sudanglo (Mostra il profilo) 06 novembre 2012 10:57:16

Is this correct?
Largely true, though sometimes English's 's' might be translated with an adjectival form eg 'Zamenhof's translation of Hamlet' might become la Zamenhofa traduko de Hamleto.

However it would be odd to say la Johana ĉemizo for John's shirt.

jbarkley (Mostra il profilo) 15 novembre 2012 00:10:07

Thank you everyone! My son is very happy with the new books that he has to read, and I have the confidence to translate a few more for him (though I am sure they will not be perfect).

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