What is the most direct translation on English. Posted by Anonymous on Sat 20 of Sep, 2008 01:20 GMT Use this thread to discuss the What is the most direct translation on English. page.
Posted by Anonymous on Sat 20 of Sep, 2008 01:20 GMT Hi, I need to translate a sequence of lojban sentences: ..i le ctuca cu vecnu le fanva le cukta The teacher sells to the translator the book . ..i te cukta te vecnu le ctuca le fanva The book is sold by the teacher to the translator. ..i le fanfa se vecnu le ctuca le cukta The translator ... I have problem here. Is that possible to say that in English? I know that the first to sentences would be a correct translation for the third sentence. I also know that I could you "buy"... But I would like to have an English translation which is as close as possible to the original lojban-sentence (and which is still grammatically correct (but not unnecessarily nice)). Thank you in advance.
Posted by pdf23ds on Sat 20 of Sep, 2008 01:41 GMT posts: 143 On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 20:19, Opi Lauma <opilauma@yahoo.com> wrote: > .i le fanfa se vecnu le ctuca le cukta > The translator ... I think you have two options here: use "buy", or use the passive voice: "is sold by the teacher the book". Putting a prepositional phrase between a verb and its direct object is pretty weird, but I think allowable in English. And I really don't see the problem with "buy". It's a precise complement to "sell", so there is no meaning lost. The official English definition of vecnu says that the x2 place is the "buyer", so the word has official backing. Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet) To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.
Posted by pdf23ds on Sat 20 of Sep, 2008 01:45 GMT posts: 143 On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 20:40, Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 20:19, Opi Lauma <opilauma@yahoo.com> wrote: >> .i le fanfa se vecnu le ctuca le cukta >> The translator ... > > And I really don't see the problem with "buy". It's a precise > complement to "sell", so there is no meaning lost. The official > English definition of vecnu says that the x2 place is the "buyer", so > the word has official backing. Oh, and check out the notes for that gismu: "x3 buys x2 from x1". There you go. Oh, and I also just noticed, that you've got your x2 and x3 mixed up. x2 is the item, x3 the buyer. That translates to English a little more naturally. Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet) To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.
Posted by adamgarrigus on Sat 20 of Sep, 2008 16:59 GMT posts: 92 On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 9:19 PM, Opi Lauma <opilauma@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > I need to translate a sequence of lojban sentences: > > .i le ctuca cu vecnu le fanva le cukta > The teacher sells to the translator the book . > > .i te cukta te vecnu le ctuca le fanva > The book is sold by the teacher to the translator. > > .i le fanfa se vecnu le ctuca le cukta > The translator ... > > I have problem here. Is that possible to say that in English? I know that the first to sentences would be a correct translation for the third sentence. I also know that I could you "buy"... But I would like to have an English translation which is as close as possible to the original lojban-sentence (and which is still grammatically correct (but not unnecessarily nice)). > > Thank you in advance. 1a: le ctuca cu vecnu le cukta le fanva 1b: The teacher sells the book to the translator. 2a: le cukta cu se vecnu le ctuca le fanva 2b: The book is sold by the teacher to the translator. 3a: le fanva cu te vecnu le cukta le ctuca 3b: The translator is sold the book by the teacher. 3c: The translator buys the book from the teacher. I think (3c) would be the normal translation of (3a). (3b) is also correct, although I can't think of another European language that allows that kind of formulation with the passive voice and the indirect object. mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.