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Sentence #584979

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Comments

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:23:13 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

You should tag it as "translation challenge".

kebukebu kebukebu October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:24:08 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

Good idea ;)

Eldad Eldad October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:25:30 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

What do you usually tag as translation challenge?

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:30:57 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

@Eldad:

I started up the idea here: http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/507792

It has my idea of what constitutes a challenge. But, I mean, it can be anything that's "hard to translate", I guess... What kebukebu put up is a very good example of one, since it takes a particular element that may not carry over to other languages and challenges translators to find a way to carry it over.

kebukebu kebukebu October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:31:01 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

I tagged this one as a translation challenge because I am not sure whether other languages allow you to refer to your car as if it were yourself -- that, is "I was the only car on the road" means the same thing as "My car was the only car on the road".

I think of a translation challenge as an idiomatic phrase or a proverb where the person who posts the challenge does not know how best to translate it into other languages. It might contain puns, strange word choices, or a culturally contextual meaning...

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:31:49 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

(furthermore, challenges may not always have a translation)

Eldad Eldad October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:35:02 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

@FeuDRenais and @kebukebu, thank you very much. I see what you mean. I'll add this tag to a few nice expressions which I came across and which I believe do constitute challenges for translators. But first I'll hit the sack, as it's pretty late over here (or should I say early... ;-)).

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:37:47 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

I'm actually going to attempt this with Russian...

Google suggests that you can refer to yourself as a car (though with only 10 results... and who knows if they're American Russians...)

Well, I suppose the real Russians can confirm/correct after.

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:41:40 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

No, not always. The order can be random.

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:42:07 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

(well, not random, obviously... but not chronological)

FeuDRenais FeuDRenais October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 3:42:44 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

Okay, I'm going to attempt this with French as well (the francophones will probably kill me but...)

Demetrius Demetrius October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 9:40:31 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

Well, it’s somewhat weird, but in general it’s an ordinary example of metonymy, and such a semantic shift can theoretically occur in any language.

But still, it’s unnatural in Russian, at least to my mind, so I’ve tagged it accordingly.

Demetrius Demetrius October 25, 2010 October 25, 2010 at 9:41:44 AM UTC flag Report link Permalink

> the real Russians can confirm/correct
Not all Russian native speakers are Russians. :P

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License: CC BY 2.0 FR

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This sentence is original and was not derived from translation.

I looked around and noticed that I was the only car on the road.

added by kebukebu, October 25, 2010