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The imprecision of English

de sudanglo, 15 decembrie 2010

Contribuții/Mesaje: 52

Limbă: English

erinja (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 02:03:43

I have found French comedies not to be funny at all, they are more cruel and tragic than anything else.

And not in the dry British way, either.

France seems to do dramas and moody tragedies well, though.

I think drama "translates" more easily than comedy anyway.

ceigered (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 03:53:25

sudanglo:
Perhaps they are full of sense instead.
Debatable, they certainly lean to being more arty-farty.
They're all rubbish, what are we talking about? lango.gif

No, that's wrong, but no matter what country's cinema/media, there'll always be classics or very good movies, or just ones that make you think, and then there'll be loads of cruddy ones which may be fun to watch but don't do much for one's IQ.

I've noticed though many IQ droppers from the Anglosphere involve action, and many IQ droppers from Europe involve drama. Well, they both can be deconstructed umpteen times to become masterpieces, but if you find yourself discovering the meaning of life while a disgruntled ex-girfriend shoots her boyfriend while crying a river over something relatively minor, you're probably also able to find the meaning of life in alphabet soup (although discovering the sanctity of life might require some bacon added in).

sudanglo (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 13:57:20

So let's agree, Ceiger, that films on TV in the Anglosphere tend more to action than their European counterparts.

The interesting question is does this arise from English's highly differentiated verbs of action, so that our thinking is couched in terms of action, or is it the case that the leanings towards action in the countries of the English speaking world has produced more verbs of action.

I do remember once being told that if you take a news report off French TV and you compare it with the same story told in English TV news then it seems to be more aggressive and full of movement in the English version.

By the way would anybody like to have a crack at rendering in Esperanto the various variants of 'walk' that I posted earlier? My gut feeling is that the verb list would be shorter.

Mustelvulpo (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 14:50:25

I attempted to translate some of those words for "walk" into Esperanto and some other languages. In the majority of cases, it would take several words to describe what English accomplishes in one. Ex.- "tiptoe" in French is "aller sur la pointe des pieds." I've heard that one hundred pages of English text will typically translate to between 102-105 pages in another language. So perhaps English is one of the most concise, if not the one of the most precise languages.

Donniedillon (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 15:27:21

I wonder if translating from another language in to English would also yield more pages? It seems that part of the nature of translation is that some meaning is inherently lost. To compensate for that one ends up using more words to convey the meaning, and often even then it is not completely accurate.

I remember hearing a story from a missionary who was working somewhere in Africa. He claims that he was introducing himself through and interpreter he said that he was "tickled to death to be here." The group he was speaking to seemed very confused/concerned. Someone later told him that the interpreter told the group that he was "so happy to be here that he scratched himself until he died."

I think it is just the nature of the beast.

erinja (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 15:39:27

A skilled translator should not try to translate an idiom like "tickled to death" so literally; they should choose an appropriate idiomatic expression in the target language, meaning "extremely pleased"

I know that was just an example but even so. Often when we say that people tiptoe, they aren't necessarily tiptoeing. They might just be treading very carefully and quietly (literally OR metaphorically). And perhaps another language has a different idiom to describe that, which the translator should choose.

So I definitely think that translating a concept from one language to another can add a lot of words, but if you translate well, and choose a less literal translation with a similar meaning, you aren't necessarily adding to the word count of your document.

I think I have read that almost any given text in English is somewhat shorter than the equivalent text in most (not all!) other languages. Our use of nouns as descriptive words ("shoe box" rather than "box for shoes") and our large vocabulary help shorten things up.

sudanglo (Arată profil) 17 decembrie 2010, 17:59:17

Just heard on Radio 4:- some new software tool which permits the study of the usage of words based on digitised texts from the late 1800's to the present day reveals that the vocabulary of English has double in the last 100 years from 500,000, to 1,000,000 words.

Not bad for a language that is 'imprecise', and good news for all teachers of English to 'alilanduloj'- their jobs are secure.

ceigered (Arată profil) 18 decembrie 2010, 03:35:27

erinja:A skilled translator should not try to translate an idiom like "tickled to death" so literally; they should choose an appropriate idiomatic expression in the target language, meaning "extremely pleased"
Since when is being tickled to death pleasing? lango.gif

geo1963 (Arată profil) 18 decembrie 2010, 07:27:26

Mustelvulpo:I attempted to translate some of those words for "walk" into Esperanto and some other languages. In the majority of cases, it would take several words to describe what English accomplishes in one. Ex.- "tiptoe" in French is "aller sur la pointe des pieds." I've heard that one hundred pages of English text will typically translate to between 102-105 pages in another language. So perhaps English is one of the most concise, if not the one of the most precise languages.
Wrong, in Polish the sentence:

"Excuse me, I don't understand, could you repeat it please?"

translates to:

"He?"

Any claims that English is the most precise and concise language in the world are not wise anyway. In one field it is shorter, in another it is not. It all depends on speaker and skills. And try to translate precisely the Esperanto sentence:

Li estas plifeliĉigonto.

and compare which one is shorter.

ceigered (Arată profil) 18 decembrie 2010, 09:25:37

Ah damn my message got deleted - @ Sudanglo, regarding how action is expressed in English, in short I reckon that because our language is an expression of our culture, it's possible that there is a continuation of some fascination with action in our culture due to it being seemingly codified quite strongly in our language. Perhaps the vikings and celts were really into it or something lango.gif

@ Geo:

haha, reminds me of Australian English:

"oi you!" = "excuse me dear sir/madam, I require your attention for an as yet untold reason" lango.gif

I must say as for me personally I have a rather restricted vocabulary when speaking, and normally use "basic" words (that is, the words that are in my head at the time, since I forget the basic words lango.gif, thus odd sentences like "I reckon I need to reconfigure and calibrate the fridge to make it better")

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