their name? or
their names?
'Their' as in non-gender singular third person pronoun.
Thanks. Is it really customary to use it these days (in the meaning of a singular third person pronoun)?
I find it very useful in some contexts. For this sentence I'm imagining something like
"After the disaster she spoke to one of the survivors. She wrote down their name so as not to forget it."
It seems very natural to me there.
Thanks. I'll try to look for more instances of this use, to make myself feel more comfortable with it.
But it's not a he or a she. In the context, we don't know anything about the person. I could change it to "She wrote down the person's name" if that would make it clearer.
Or imagine this context:
A: "Someone called for you but I've forgotten who it was."
B: "Well did you write down their name?"
That's absolutely perfect and natural English in my view.
is this a case of difference of perception by Brits and Usians ?
It could well be. I'd like to know what Americans would say in the dialogue I gave above if it is.
Sorry for intrusion, but I suspect that the sentence B is impossible to translate right without A since the latter contains necessary context ("someone called").
>Sorry for intrusion, but I suspect that the sentence B is impossible to translate right without A since the latter contains necessary context ("someone called").
depends on the language. In French, it works marvels.
That's true, but that's in the nature of translation isn't it? So what we should be concerned with here is whether or not there's a context in which that original sentence would be right, and I think there is one.
> That's true, but that's in the nature of translation isn't it?
The problem is that, from personal experience, we're often dealing with out-of-context sentences here. This is a regular nightmare for interpreters, so I think it's better to either provide enough context or avoid composing ambiguous sentences. We can't do much with old neglected cases that already have translations into many different languages, but it's within our grasp to not make the situation worse.
>avoid composing ambiguous sentences
You can't do that, because what seems not ambiguous in one language is in another. Ambiguity arises from the level of precision of a language. In English, almost every sentence is ambiguous to me.
CK was skeptical that I can translate a sentence with the subject "you" into 6 translations in French. it is however very simple : "you" can be plural or singular, male or feale, formal or not from a French point of view (and not from a an English point of view). But from another point of view, "plural" or "formal" is ambiguous. Some languages have several plurals depending on the quantity, and several levels of formality.
Writing non-ambiguous sentences would imply to know all languages.
alternatively, this sentence can also mean that she noted down the common name of 2 persons (brothers, sisters, spouses, parents...)
The surname? Yeah it works for that too.
Can we keep the end user of Tatoeba in mind for this? Suppose I'm someone studying English, and I'm in a situation where I think I can say this sentence. So I come here to check if it's right. In that case Tatoeba has let them down if their correct sentence is not there.
Also, if you accept "that person" why can't you accept "them"? They're totally equivalent in meaning here, it's just that "them" is a bit more natural and elegant.
Although in sacredceltic's context, the sentence is no longer a translation of the Chinese.
>> avoid composing ambiguous sentences
> You can't do that, because what seems not ambiguous in one language is in another.
> Writing non-ambiguous sentences would imply to know all languages.
I see your point and, what is more, I share your opinion to some extent. I believe, no matter how vague a certain language is, there should be a way to express yourself precisely even using it. Competent native speakers are aware of various traps and complexities of their mother tongues and are capable of minimizing their impact. In most cases, adding some extra details will do the trick, I reckon.
> Suppose I'm someone studying English, and I'm in a situation where I think I can say this sentence. So I come here to check if it's right.
Well, I think this is the thing most people come here for. :-) And this is the reason we have to help them as much as we can. For example, English "Why didn't you help your sister?" could be translated into Russian in 3 different ways at least and one of them will be pretty ambiguous. But adding some extra details not only effectively narrows the number of variants to only one, but also increases educational value of the sentence: "Tommy, why didn't you help your sister?" - Tom's father asked.
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