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FeuDRenais - Aug 23rd 2010, 13:09
I'm following up on your last mail.
FeuDRenais - Aug 23rd 2010, 13:09
linked to 474861
FeuDRenais - Aug 23rd 2010, 21:03
I'm following up on your last e-mail.
sacredceltic - Jul 7th 2011, 17:56
linked to 980091

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Sentence nº476409

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I'm following up on your last e-mail.

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Comments

  1. sacredceltic
    Aug 23rd 2010, 19:27
    courriel= email
  2. blay_paul
    Aug 23rd 2010, 19:30
    Mail can also = email
  3. blay_paul
    Aug 23rd 2010, 19:31
    Although I probably wouldn't use it for that myself.
  4. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 19:34
    When you're writing an e-mail to someone, you usually leave out the "e-", as it's obvious.
  5. sacredceltic
    Aug 23rd 2010, 19:38
    well, but then you don't translate the French that is specific...
  6. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:09
    This brings up the issue of how liberal the translations may be in order to be natural sounding... As far as I know, the policy on this is not clear.

    To me, this was the most natural translation that came to mind (yes, I was aware that it was an e-mail).
  7. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:11
    (this probably deserves a wall topic)
  8. sacredceltic
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:14
    My view is translations should have 2 directions. A can translate B but B cannot translate A.
  9. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:16
    This isn't bi-directional? It seems fine to me.
  10. sacredceltic
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:24
    No it isn't:
    FR "courriel" => EN/FeuDRenais "mail" => FR "courrier"
  11. TRANG
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:34
    It's actually more like this:
    FR "courriel" <=> EN "mail" <=> FR "courrier"

    Another way to see this:
    EN "mail"
    => FR "courrier"
    => FR "courriel"

    It simply means the English sentence has several possible meanings. Perhaps add "ambiguous" tag?
  12. sacredceltic
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:47
    Of course, seen from English, this is fine. But it doesn't work so well the other way, since the relations are bidirectional.
    But having a mail => courriel, gives the false impression that "mail" translates usually into courriel, which it doesn't in a majority of cases.
    That is why I think there should exist the functionality to define monodirectional relationships.
  13. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:50
    I wasn't aware that Tatoeba was supposed to be a dictionary.

    Looking at the phrase as a whole, I don't see how an English speaker would take "mail" to mean "letter" in that sentence.
  14. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 20:52
    @Trang:

    I don't see why you would need an ambiguous tag. The meaning is quite clear. I've never heard of anyone following up on someone's "last mail" for anything other than e-mail. For "courrier", you would use "letter" (at least, in this day and age).
  15. sacredceltic
    Aug 23rd 2010, 21:01
    well, is Tatoeba for youngsters only ?
  16. FeuDRenais
    Aug 23rd 2010, 21:02
    YES.

    No, no, of course not. I consulted a friend, and he thought it was ambiguous as well. I'm changing it to "e-mail".

    My apologies, I write too many e-mails.
  17. blay_paul
    Aug 23rd 2010, 21:03
    I think this is a clear case for including _both_ translations.

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