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Pink Floyd Translation Help

de kejos144, 2006-julio-28

Mesaĝoj: 7

Lingvo: English

kejos144 (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-28 12:26:12

I'm a complete beginner in Esperanto, but I attempted to translate a song, horribly. I picked one of the shortest songs I know of, and I'm sure everyone here knows it too. Another Brick in the Wall.

English:
We don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teachers, leave them kids alone.
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Attempted Esperanto:
Ni ne bezonas edukado.
Ni ne bezonas kontrolo de penso.
Neniom malbona sarcasmo en la klasĉambro.
Instruistoj, lasu la kaprido sola.
Hej! Instruistoj! Lasu la kaprido sola!
Ĉio en Ĉio, ĝi estas nur plia briko en la muro.
Ĉio en Ĉio, vi estas nur plia briko en la muro.

I don't know what I would replace the phrases with, if my words are right. Can anyone help me translate this?

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-28 15:13:43

kejos144:I'm a complete beginner in Esperanto, but I attempted to translate a song, horribly. I picked one of the shortest songs I know of, and I'm sure everyone here knows it too. Another Brick in the Wall.

English:
We don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teachers, leave them kids alone.
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Attempted Esperanto:
Ni ne bezonas edukado.
Ni ne bezonas kontrolo de penso.
Neniom malbona sarcasmo en la klasĉambro.
Instruistoj, lasu la kaprido sola.
Hej! Instruistoj! Lasu la kaprido sola!
Ĉio en Ĉio, ĝi estas nur plia briko en la muro.
Ĉio en Ĉio, vi estas nur plia briko en la muro.

I don't know what I would replace the phrases with, if my words are right. Can anyone help me translate this?
Hi

Pretty good, but don't forget the accusative!

Here's my translation:

Ni ne bezonas edukadon
Ni ne bezonas regon de pensoj (or: pensoregon, if you want that in one word)
Neniu malhela sarkasmo en la klascxambro.
Instruistoj, forlasu tiujn infanojn.
Hej! Instruistoj! Forlasu tiujn infanojn!
Entute, estas nur plua briko en la muro.
Entute, vi estas nur plua briko en la muro.

Some notes: in most cases, "control" is a poor translation for "kontrolo"; it's an example of a false friend. I would translate the English word "control" as "rego". The Esperanto word "kontrolo" would be more like "checking". The verb "kontroli" usually means "to check" "to verify" or "to supervise").

The word "kid" in English literally means a baby goat. The use of the word to mean a child came later. Unfortunately, the Esperanto dictionary gave you the goat definition; kapr/id/o. I will certainly edit that definition in the dictionary, since it doesn't give the Esperanto word for "child" under "kid".

You've noticed the translation is not very literal (except for the word "malhela" - in this case I think it's ok, since "malhela" is often used in a similar metaphorical way, as "dark" is in English). Translating idioms word for word usually doesn't make that much sense. For example, when we tell someone "leave me alone!" does it mean that they absolutely have to leave the room so that you're alone? Not usually; usually it just means "stop bothering me'

kejos144 (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-29 00:16:33

(Look! An SX/Ŝ Button!)

Aw man. That really makes me realize how bad my translation was. Heh.

Could I fit the translation as an alternative version of the song?

Ni ne bez'nas edukadon.
Ni ne bezonas pensoregon.
('N'niu mal'la s'kasmo en la klasĉambr')
Instruistoj, forlas' tiujn inf'nojn
Hej! Instruistoj! Forlas' tiujn inf'nojn!
Entute, estas nur plua brik' en la mur'.
Entute, vi 'stas nur plua brik' en la mur'.

Yeah, I realize that those kind of phrases wouldn't be translated literally because they wouldn't have the same meaning/feeling in a different language. My friend doesn't realize that how many times I tell him.

Of course, some words would be slurred while singing.

kejos144 (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-29 00:19:01

Oh by the way, thanks for the help. The edit feature seems to be broken. I'd hate to result to double posting, but that post seemed rude.

Novico Dektri (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-29 05:43:26

kejos144:(Look! An SX/Ŝ Button!)

Aw man. That really makes me realize how bad my translation was. Heh.

Could I fit the translation as an alternative version of the song?

Ni ne bez'nas edukadon.
Ni ne bezonas pensoregon.
('N'niu mal'la s'kasmo en la klasĉambr')
Instruistoj, forlas' tiujn inf'nojn
Hej! Instruistoj! Forlas' tiujn inf'nojn!
Entute, estas nur plua brik' en la mur'.
Entute, vi 'stas nur plua brik' en la mur'.

Yeah, I realize that those kind of phrases wouldn't be translated literally because they wouldn't have the same meaning/feeling in a different language. My friend doesn't realize that how many times I tell him.

Of course, some words would be slurred while singing.
I'm not exactly an expert in Esperant' but with the whole ' replacing "o's" thing, I believe that only applys to the end of a word.

kejos144 (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-29 07:46:33

Well the "o's" would still be there, it's just marking that it's not a significant syllable.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-31 21:58:29

kejos144:(Look! An SX/Ŝ Button!)

Aw man. That really makes me realize how bad my translation was. Heh.

Could I fit the translation as an alternative version of the song?

Ni ne bez'nas edukadon.
Ni ne bezonas pensoregon.
('N'niu mal'la s'kasmo en la klasĉambr')
Instruistoj, forlas' tiujn inf'nojn
Hej! Instruistoj! Forlas' tiujn inf'nojn!
Entute, estas nur plua brik' en la mur'.
Entute, vi 'stas nur plua brik' en la mur'.

Of course, some words would be slurred while singing.
I wouldn't say "bez'nas", it sounds weird to me. But you could say something like "bzonas", which would sound more similar to the original word and could be pronounced in two syllables.

Officially, the only letters you can omit are the final -o (but only if it's an -o, not -on or -ojn) and the a in "la" if the next letter begins with a vowel. "forlas'" would be understood to mean "forlaso". Having said this - I think 'stas would be understood as being a slangy variation on "estas", wheras "inf'nojn" just looks strange. Unfortunately, I think this is an instance where extensive speaking experience would be greatly helpful. If you've spent a while speaking the language, you get a feel for how people pronounce it in every day speech, which syllables are likely to be slurred and shortened, etc. I think it can be ok, in a song, to remove syllables outside of the rigid rules of final -o's and a's in "la", but it takes experience to tell which ones are the likely candidates. In general, I wouldn't remove anything that carries grammatical information (like the -u in "forlasu"). The first and last syllables are more likely candidates than something in the middle of a word.

In general, Esperanto doesn't go dropping letters all over the place to make something fit a meter. In most cases, the translator alters the words of a song to utilize words of similar meanings, but with fewer syllables. I think this is why "singable" translations of songs are few and far between - it's difficult to come up with a translation that accurately reflects the content, and fits the tune of a song. And even then the translator usually takes a few liberties with the content to end up lines of the right length.

While we're on the topic of songs - there's a fun Esperanto song lyric archive online at http://www.ikso.net/kantaro/ . It has both original Esperanto songs and translations (including a fun one of Hotel California - listed as Hotel Kalifornia in this databas) that I quite enjoyed reading as a beginner.

Regarding the -o's not being a significant syllable - actually, when they are replaced with an apostrophe, they are flat out not pronounced, so they are definitely gone as far as pronunciation is concerned.

This brings me to a fun website, which you can find here

It lays out the rules for speaking Esperant', which is Esperanto where you remove every possible final -o and replace it with an apostrophe and strive never to use the final -n or -j, so that you maximize your chances to use the apostrophe. You also try very hard to make verbs out of prepositions and things that aren't usually verbs, and to place the verb somewhere strange in the sentence. Basically, you try to make your sentence as weird as possible while staying 100% within the rules of correct Esperanto grammar. I'm a huge language geek but i think it's a lot of fun; sort of a language "game" that requires a lot of creativity with your speech, plus forethought to remove "undesirable" grammatical elements.

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