And when your working at the UN as a translator,you overhear a plot to kill an African President.You tell the FBI,but they don't believe you.Thus starts a thrilling and hair raising adventure as you fight for your life,in your effort to expose the plot.
Of course this may only work if you are Nicole Kidman and we go back to 2005.

" stichididu in cu e fragadidu"

Originally Posted by old_bloke

" stichididu in cu e fragadidu"

Syldavian for "Did you stitch him or frag him?"

Anyway, this is all old hat. They've had universal translators on Star Trek and Dr Who for ages.

Was told but a Dutchman, in Private Ryan they have an actor use a literal translation of 'fox hole' in German, which he said was b'lox because the Germans use a totally different expression. Is this correct?

No.9

Originally Posted by No.9

Was told but a Dutchman, in Private Ryan they have an actor use a literal translation of 'fox hole' in German, which he said was b'lox because the Germans use a totally different expression. Is this correct?

No.9

The literal translation of fox hole is der Fuchsbau, but not sure what the equivelant is in German squaddie speak.

I realise that any thread on languages is bound to throw up folks who want to demonstrate their command of such, but the issue goes much deeper. Nobody’s really interested in whether you can say: "I rubbed the worn-out tyre over my sweaty feet", or not (but well done to you if you can). This is about something much more.

I won’t argue that I've a very interested stake in the game, but it goes much further than that, since this MOLTO project doesn’t seem to encompass all of the official languages in the EU. It appears to exclude Irish and other “obscure� tongues. See the Q&A section here:

http://www.molto-project.eu/faq.html#toc2

http://ec.europa.eu/education/langua.../doc135_en.htm

I’d like, if I may, to illustrate just how innocuous but ultimately complicated (and sometimes expensive) "wrong� translations can be:

A Boxheed forwarding company got in touch with an Aussie company to arrange the sea-transport of a bottling-capping machine “maid in Tschermanee� to its orderer on that funny-shaped island of Australia. The Aussie company forwarding company, in turn, asked the routine question regarding insurance: “Have you taken out insurance?“.

The Boxheed clerk in Bremen tasked with overseeing the transaction was more than a little overstretched, linguistically, but promised to get back as soon as he (for 'twas a "he") could on the question. He did get back, and informed his antediluvian counterpart that “insurance had indeed been “taken out�, or removed/cancelled, as he understood it. Inevitably, as in such cases, the ship in question hit really atrocious weather and the machine was badly damaged due to tons of stuff falling on it. Over to you, Mr Starter.

And this is (sort of) the point I’m trying to make! Your man in Bremen was a Boxheed with the very best intentions and understood "to take out" in his native language as to mean “to remove". He telephoned around and cancelled the insurance that had "already been taken out", confident that his Aussie counterparts had dealt with the matter.

This was the subject of a court case I was actively involved with as a "court translator" in the mid-Eighties in Bremen.

MsG

Edited to add. I believe you'll find that the Boxheed equivalent of "foxhole" is "Schützenloch" - even today.

I was on a course in Lossiemouth in 1963. The wife of an Australian on the course rang up Lossie wardroom from Portsmouth. She couldn't get the Jock hall porter to understand her, even her rather simple msg to get her husband to call her back. So perhaps we need to start with machine translation from English to English ('say, got a rubber, Buddy?')

IMHO this Molto thing is just another way for the EU to throw away our money. But no doubt someone who will make money out of the project has connections in Brussels, so that's that. Cheaper than Galileo, anyway, even if just as redudant.

Crooks start at Calais and end at Vladivostok.

Originally Posted by Bugsy

Edited to add. I believe you'll find that the Boxheed equivalent of "foxhole" is "Schützenloch" - even today.

Yep you're right, I translated it exactly as written, ie two words; not one.

Bugs, your point does illustrate a problem area, but equally a problem area is that people communicating in a ‘foreign’ language, as far as I’m aware, usually have no training in how to do so in respect of taking care to avoid possible ambiguity.

Your example shows no consideration of the possibility of this. I expect far fewer people are truly bilingual than those who have ‘a good knowledge of’, with perhaps a piece of paper or two which proclaims they’re ‘qualified’. Diplomatic translators should be truly bilingual and culturally aware, but equally they can expect that the language used will itself be expressed tempered with an awareness of avoiding ambiguity? Apparently not always the case as incidents have shown, and, sometimes exploited by one or both parties as an excuse to alter meaning to their advantage.

If the dialogue is serious, the rule is surely ‘keep it simple and direct’ and don’t worry if you might be perceived as a poor linguist and do not be afraid to say you do not understand. Accurate communication, not scoring points.

No.9

This thread came to mind when, looking at some foreign text, I thought I'd run it through some translator to see what it made of it. The result was amazing.

The short Italian text is:

“Torre "TURRIS ad MARE" costruita nel 950/960 in onore a Pandolfo Capodiferro Conte di Capua.

Divenne Museo Storico Nazionale della CiviltÃ* Aurunca nel 1936 e fatto Brillare dalle Truppe Tedesche in ritirata nel 1943 come pure il ponte Borbonico.â€�

Which came back as:

“Tower "TURRIS to SEA" built in the 950/960 in honor to Pandolfo Capodiferro Count of Capua.

Historical Divenne Museum National of the Civility Aurunca in 1936 and make Shine from the Troops Tedesche in lavatory in 1943 like too the Bourbon bridge.�

Some words I can see an auto having trouble with, like ‘Turris (believe=turreted), Divenne (believe refers to interior?), fatto Brillare (not sure but as I know the tower and the bridge were blow-up, take this as an expression of same – but why capitalised?), but ‘ritirata’ and ‘Tedesche’??? ‘Ritirata’ is withdraw/retreat, using ‘lavatory’ is like referring to someone being in the ‘library’ meaning they’re in the bog? ‘Tedesche’ is baffling, it’s normal standard for ‘German’? They could handle Bourbon, but not German???

So is this new super translator going to do an accurate job, or just a bit better than what we have now – which frankly wouldn’t be that hard.

No.9