Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by finlay »

Mr. Z wrote:The results are amusing. BTW, was I supposed to supply a romanization along with my Hebrew translation?
No, but it might make it slightly easier to read for those of us who can't read Hebrew.

I have a couple of comments here. You've mentioned a couple of times that the brother becomes the brother of the girlfriend rather than the brother of the protagonist, which is probably because I left out "my" in the Latin because I thought it would be implied. But since the brother is next to the girlfriend, he became her brother instead. As for the girlfriend herself, well she became a wife because the older languages don't really draw the distinction. Victor just seems to have made a mistake in making the brother the girlfriend's brother, though, since Yiuel's translation does say "mi hermano".

As for the porn, well I may have deliberately misinterpreted that a little bit. "Me couche" sounded like Ulrike was trying to awkwardly say "beds me" as a euphemism for "fucks me", so I went with that (incidentally, Wikipedia has a great page about Latin profanity!). I should also note that the word he used in French and the word I used in Latin for hair both actually refer to body hair rather than head hair. At first I was going to translate it as "fur". I think this contributed to the porn interpretation, as did "seed", which would be translated with the word "semen" in Latin anyway.

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by finlay »

Legion wrote:It's not a matter of needing one, you had to make one, that was part of the rules.
To clarify, it says "if you have made one" because it's not obligatory for people who are already translating to/from English. It's in the rules that you're supposed to make one because 90% of people can't understand 90% of the languages that are used. But I don't think Åge's has changed very much between Norwegian and Swedish (a link i specifically avoided giving him when I organised it because they're quite close. Meh.), so it's not as important as getting one for say Old Occitan, which I don't think any of us actually understand...

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Ser »

The more I look at my text the more changes I'd make. Anyway, I never said it was supposed to be good Old Spanish.
Ulrike Meinhof wrote:It's a shame the English translations are missing for some parts. I'm wondering what this Old Spanish means: "non te treves me mosar las barbas". That ended up as "je ne t'empêche pas de me mouiller le pépin" in my French translation, going through Old Occitan. "Mosar las barbas" has to be some sort of idiomatic expression, I suppose?
An English translation is completely unnecessary in my case since I was going from English. Take the English as my translation since it's what I was trying to express. And that's a typo, it should be "mesar la(s) barba(s)" 'to play a joke/prank', no idea how that happened. :x

jmcd
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1034
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:46 am
Location: Réunion
Contact:

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by jmcd »

Legion wrote:It's not a matter of needing one, you had to make one, that was part of the rules.
I know; that's why did do one and send it. Just I did it and sent it well after I sent the German.

tubragg
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:18 pm
Location: The REAL suburbs

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by tubragg »

finlay wrote:But I don't think Åge's has changed very much between Norwegian and Swedish
Not much at all. He made a minor mistake (I think) in translating the Swedish "svår" ("difficult") to the Norwegian "svær" ("big"). I noticed since I (being Swedish) very nearly made the same mistake in reverse, which would have negated his mistake. :D I corrected it right before sending my translation. Of course it's entirely possible that I just don't know how "svær" is used. In any case it didn't really change the meaning much.

Otherwise I'm most proud of changing "uplifting cut of confusion" to "encouraging confusion clip", which I think makes a lot more sense. Or at least somewhat less nonsense. :?

Magb
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 194
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 9:42 am
Location: Oslo, Norway

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Magb »

tubragg wrote:
finlay wrote:But I don't think Åge's has changed very much between Norwegian and Swedish
Not much at all. He made a minor mistake (I think) in translating the Swedish "svår" ("difficult") to the Norwegian "svær" ("big"). I noticed since I (being Swedish) very nearly made the same mistake in reverse, which would have negated his mistake. :D I corrected it right before sending my translation. Of course it's entirely possible that I just don't know how "svær" is used. In any case it didn't really change the meaning much.
Yeah, "svær" can only mean "big" in Norwegian. A couple of other false friends I noticed were "äntligen" ("finally") > "egentlig" ("actually") and "stannade" ("stopped" or "stayed", but I think "stopped" was implied) > "stod" ("stood").

User avatar
Viktor77
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2635
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:27 pm
Location: Memphis, Tennessee

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Viktor77 »

I just want to go on record as saying I even searched the RAE and could not find the word "montone" which Yiuel used for "mound," so I guessed pot.

Also I misread "mi" as "su" and wrote "son." No idea how...just working too fast.
Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Ser »

Viktor77 wrote:I just want to go on record as saying I even searched the RAE
You don't say you "search the RAE", you search the DRAE. The RAE is the Academy (the acronym stands for Real Academia Española), the DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española) is its dictionary.
and could not find the word "montone" which Yiuel used for "mound," so I guessed pot.
The singular would be montón, although it's not idiomatic here.

If you aren't sure of what a plural word's singular is, just look it up at wordreference.com. The Spanish-English dictionary apparently has every morphological variant stored, so looking up plurals or conjugated verbs generally redirects you to the appropriate entry. This is what you get when searching montones.

User avatar
Dewrad
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 1040
Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2002 9:02 pm

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Dewrad »

Åge Kruger wrote:
Lyhoko Leaci wrote:
Viktor77 wrote:
Zoris wrote:Two days left! + another few days to organise everything before we can see it.
Fix'd.

And there's really no excuse for not finishing on time. If you sit down and take one hour of your 15 waking hours of your time you can finish it and pass it along in a day. It's not like one can't spare an hour!
The "organization" is pretty much just dump into a page on the wiki for me, it's almost ready as it is, I just need the completed translation to float in...

And it would be nice if Dewrad, Risla and Åge Kruger would provide their English translations that they forgot, though those aren't as important...
I didn't forget. I didn't need to make one to translate, so I didn't make one. There is no English translation. Yet.
Actually, what am I translating into English? My Old Occitan or Serafin's Old Spanish? If the former, why aren't you clucking at Serafin for not providing an English translation hismelf?
Some useful Dravian links: Grammar - Lexicon - Ask a Dravian
Salmoneus wrote:(NB Dewrad is behaving like an adult - a petty, sarcastic and uncharitable adult, admittedly, but none the less note the infinitely higher quality of flame)

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by finlay »

he translated directly from english, in which case there is no point.

it doesn't really matter if you translate from yours or his, it's purely so that the rest of us can follow what's going on. as it stands we can only make educated guesses.

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Ser »

Dewrad wrote:Actually, what am I translating into English? My Old Occitan or Serafin's Old Spanish?
Your Old Occitan, I guess, though it may go either way.
Dewrad wrote:If the former, why aren't you clucking at Serafin for not providing an English translation hismelf?
Read my post above:
Serafín wrote:An English translation is completely unnecessary in my case since I was going from English. Take the English as my translation since it's what I was trying to express.

User avatar
tatapyranga
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 85
Joined: Wed May 21, 2003 9:24 pm
Location: Greasy Gaucho Spic Land
Contact:

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by tatapyranga »

Lyhoko Leaci wrote:And the results are now up:

Main Page
Details Page
Hilarious end results.

Looking at my team first:
  • Yiuel's translation into Spanish has some weird constructions like "estoy teniendo". He also puts "No me trago" - I dunno if that's an idiom, but it became "I don't bring my own" when it got to me.
  • Viktor's translation weirds it more, "también estoy teniendo" -> "je suis aussi en train d'avoir" ( :| ) then he writes in his English translation "I am also in the process of having" :| Viktor also turns mounds into pots (which was 'a bottle' when it got to me).
  • Then somehow (I don't know Mandarin) treskro turns that into "I had already decided to do..."
  • So what Chibi meant was "carelessly-dressed women’s clothing"? I translated it into "chaotic worn women's clothes" because that was all I could guess.
  • I think tatapyranga (me) did well overall
    Lyhoko Leaci wrote:Not much to mention here... just that it's continuing to get even weirder. Bred and Taara share a room?
    Hehe. Not my fault, "ihrer" can be 'her' or 'their'. I also turned "I didn't bring myself" into "I didn't bring my own", because I thought it would make more sense.
  • Qwynegold took my "rinta" and translated it with "breast", and then guessed the gender of the referent based on that. I knew that would happen, he even posted about it, but there is no other word for 'chest' in Finnish that isn't ambiguous with 'breast' (I didn't know it was actually a breast). Also, "she just wanted to do an uplifting hair cut mess"?? I would love to know what is an uplifting hair cut mess.
  • tubragg makes her make an "encouraging confusion clip", which is something I have trouble imagining.
  • Peacekeeper somehow brings the guy not only to his own room but to "his companion's" room as well.
  • Things become melodramatic when Åge Kruger writes "høyde hun brøstet sitt en siste gang" which later (Sevly) appears as "She fell, and there she lifted her chest for the last time."
There is only one god and his name is Death. And there's only one thing we say to Death: 'Not today'.

User avatar
Lyhoko Leaci
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 716
Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Not Mariya's road network, thankfully.

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Lyhoko Leaci »

On a random note, I just knew the text would become porn at one point...
tatapyranga wrote:
  • Qwynegold took my "rinta" and translated it with "breast", and then guessed the gender of the referent based on that. I knew that would happen, he even posted about it, but there is no other word for 'chest' in Finnish that isn't ambiguous with 'breast' (I didn't know it was actually a breast). Also, "she just wanted to do an uplifting hair cut mess"?? I would love to know what is an uplifting hair cut mess.
Technically, that word was originally chest. The breast was the mound, which by the time it got to you, had become a bottle.
Zain pazitovcor, sio? Sio, tovcor.
You can't read that, right? Yes, it says that.
Shinali Sishi wrote:"Have I spoken unclearly? I meant electric catfish not electric onions."

User avatar
Ser
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1542
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:55 am
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia / Colombie Britannique, Canada

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Ser »

tatapyranga wrote:Yiuel's translation into Spanish has some weird constructions like "estoy teniendo".
Estoy teniendo is a possible construction in Spanish, but not here. (That *porque mi también estoy teniendo... should be porque todavía tengo...) So it wouldn't be possible to say things like estoy teniendo muchos problemas con mi laptop últimamente with a estar + gerund progressive in Portuguese?
He also puts "No me trago" - I dunno if that's an idiom, but it became "I don't bring my own" when it got to me.
Yes, Yiuel attempted to use a proper idiom equivalent to "to fall for [a joke]", though it should've been no me la voy a tragar (future tense and including la = la broma) or similar.

It became "I don't bring my own" because Viktor interpreted trago (which comes from the verb tragar 'to swallow') as traigo, a conjugation of the verb traer 'to bring'.
Viktor also turns mounds into pots (which was 'a bottle' when it got to me).
Read our posts above.
Lyhoko Leaci wrote:On a random note, I just knew the text would become porn at one point...
You included breasts, what else would you expect?

User avatar
brandrinn
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:59 pm
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by brandrinn »

So when is the result thread going to be posted?
[quote="Nortaneous"]Is South Africa better off now than it was a few decades ago?[/quote]

jmcd
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1034
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:46 am
Location: Réunion
Contact:

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by jmcd »

You mean this?:
Lyhoko Leaci wrote:And the results are now up:

Main Page
Details Page

User avatar
tatapyranga
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 85
Joined: Wed May 21, 2003 9:24 pm
Location: Greasy Gaucho Spic Land
Contact:

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by tatapyranga »

Serafín wrote:
tatapyranga wrote:Yiuel's translation into Spanish has some weird constructions like "estoy teniendo".
Estoy teniendo is a possible construction in Spanish, but not here. (That *porque mi también estoy teniendo... should be porque todavía tengo...) So it wouldn't be possible to say things like estoy teniendo muchos problemas con mi laptop últimamente with a estar + gerund progressive in Portuguese?
Yes, it is possible. But it is strange in that context, as you just said.
Serafín wrote:
He also puts "No me trago" - I dunno if that's an idiom, but it became "I don't bring my own" when it got to me.
Yes, Yiuel attempted to use a proper idiom equivalent to "to fall for [a joke]", though it should've been no me la voy a tragar (future tense and including la = la broma) or similar.
It became "I don't bring my own" because Viktor interpreted trago (which comes from the verb tragar 'to swallow') as traigo, a conjugation of the verb traer 'to bring'.
I see. That would confuse me too - unless I looked up conjugations, I would mix up "tragar" (~ Pt. tragar) and "traer" (~ Pt. trazer) because both conjugate 'trago' (1s) in Pt.
There is only one god and his name is Death. And there's only one thing we say to Death: 'Not today'.

User avatar
Qwynegold
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Qwynegold »

Yiuel Denjidzirc wrote:Ah, este debe estar esto.
That's a lot of est! :o


tatapyranga wrote:I think tatapyranga (me) did well overall
Um, except for tons of missing agreement and wrong cases. Also, what is this supposed to mean?:
ja he ovat tuoneet minut heidän huoneeseen ovat vei minut omaan huoneeseensa
It says "and they have brought me to their room have took me to their own room". (In the hurry, I missed the 3PL suffix when I translated so I thought it was "my room".)
tatapyranga wrote:Also, "she just wanted to do an uplifting hair cut mess"?? I would love to know what is an uplifting hair cut mess.
I didn't know what "nousukas" meant. My first guess would've been an adjective describing a dough that raises well, but with the context I guessed it was an adjective meaning "something that lifts spirits". You translated the verb "mess" with a noun "mess" and stuck it at the end of the sentence, so I thought there was a triple compound "haircut mess".



I made a couple of retarded mistakes, it must've been because I rushed it so. I have no idea what I meant with "彼女と彼女のお兄さんは私に剥げていて". Then I accidentally used the kanji for "go" instead of "say", in "彼はある時行った" because they're homonyms in the past tense. *headdesk*



Less retarded mistakes:
"Hän sanoi kerran" means "he said once", but somehow I interpreted it more like "at one point in time he said", which is also a possible translation, but the former meaning would've made more sense.

I accidentally wrote "She saw him, she was also confused", in my English translation, when it's actually supposed to be "he saw her...". The order is correct in my Japanese text and all the following translations, so can you fix this in the KQ article, Lyhoko Leaci?



Peacekeeper translated my "私が等々何をするか見られるために" (in order to finally see what I would do) with "in order to see that I would finally do something". That would've been the meaning had I written "何かをする", but with "何をするか" the meaning is "what I would do", right?

I should've known that "先方" would come and bite me in the ass. The dictionary says "先方 【せんぽう】 (n) other party (side), he, she, they, destination, (P)" but also "先方 【さきかた】 (n) the person in front, companion". So "their room" became "my companion's room".

But how did "めちゃくちゃ" become "confused"?


Lyhoko Leaci wrote:You became we?
Because of pronoun drop. :P
Lyhoko Leaci wrote:and breast went back to chest.
In Finnish, Swedish, and possibly Japanese too, the word for chest can also mean breast.
Lyhoko Leaci wrote:Also, girlfriend now becomes generic she
Because in Japanese, the words for "he" and "she" can also mean "boyfriend" and "girlfriend". :P
Image
My most recent quiz:
Eurovision Song Contest 2018

User avatar
tatapyranga
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 85
Joined: Wed May 21, 2003 9:24 pm
Location: Greasy Gaucho Spic Land
Contact:

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by tatapyranga »

Qwynegold wrote:
tatapyranga wrote:I think tatapyranga (me) did well overall
Um, except for tons of missing agreement and wrong cases.
Huh, ok, then I didn't.
Also, what is this supposed to mean?:
ja he ovat tuoneet minut heidän huoneeseen ovat vei minut omaan huoneeseensa
It says "and they have brought me to their room have took me to their own room". (In the hurry, I missed the 3PL suffix when I translated so I thought it was "my room".)
That means I forgot a piece of an older translation in the middle of the text. I should have deleted the second part:
ja he ovat tuoneet minut heidän huoneeseen ovat vei minut omaan huoneeseensa
tatapyranga wrote:Also, "she just wanted to do an uplifting hair cut mess"?? I would love to know what is an uplifting hair cut mess.
I didn't know what "nousukas" meant. My first guess would've been an adjective describing a dough that raises well, but with the context I guessed it was an adjective meaning "something that lifts spirits".
According to Wiktionary, it means "upstart", an attempt to translate Chibi's "Neureiche" (nouveau riche).
You translated the verb "mess" with a noun "mess" and stuck it at the end of the sentence, so I thought there was a triple compound "haircut mess".
The construction intended was "tehdä X sotku", which I thought would work as 'to make a mess of X' (which was what I understood). I don't remember why I used that and made such a mess, I should have used the verb sotkea.
There is only one god and his name is Death. And there's only one thing we say to Death: 'Not today'.

User avatar
Qwynegold
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Qwynegold »

tatapyranga wrote:According to Wiktionary, it means "upstart", an attempt to translate Chibi's "Neureiche" (nouveau riche).
Ah, OK.

The next PGT should be an audio one. Who's gonna organize it?
Image
My most recent quiz:
Eurovision Song Contest 2018

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by finlay »

Yeah, anyone want to do a new one? I can organise it again I guess. :P

User avatar
Lyhoko Leaci
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 716
Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Not Mariya's road network, thankfully.

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Lyhoko Leaci »

If its an audio one, I'm not participating.
Zain pazitovcor, sio? Sio, tovcor.
You can't read that, right? Yes, it says that.
Shinali Sishi wrote:"Have I spoken unclearly? I meant electric catfish not electric onions."

User avatar
finlay
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3600
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:35 pm
Location: Tokyo

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by finlay »

We can do an audio one separately, I just meant a normal one.

Astraios
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2974
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:38 am
Location: Israel

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Astraios »

I'd do a normal one too, but not an audio one. Get organizing, finlay. :D

User avatar
Peacekeeper
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:28 pm
Location: Back in Europe

Re: Polyglottal Telephone XIII

Post by Peacekeeper »

tatapyranga wrote:Peacekeeper somehow brings the guy not only to his own room but to "his companion's" room as well.
Not my fault! :P This was already present in Qwynegold's Japanese. Except that I mistranslated "先方の" ("their") as "companion's".
tatapyranga wrote:Things become melodramatic when Åge Kruger writes "høyde hun brøstet sitt en siste gang" which later (Sevly) appears as "She fell, and there she lifted her chest for the last time."
This on the other hand was my fault I think... I was the one who interpreted Qwynegold's ending as describing the death of the girl. It's less obvious in my English translation for some reason, but in my Swedish the sentence is almost identical to Åge's Norwegian.
Qwynegold wrote:Then I accidentally used the kanji for "go" instead of "say", in "彼はある時行った" because they're homonyms in the past tense. *headdesk*
Yeah, I was pretty sure that's what you really meant, but I saw no reason to change it back.
Qwynegold wrote:Peacekeeper translated my "私が等々何をするか見られるために" (in order to finally see what I would do) with "in order to see that I would finally do something". That would've been the meaning had I written "何かをする", but with "何をするか" the meaning is "what I would do", right?
Here of course you are correct. By the time I realized my mistake I had already sent the text on its way.
Qwynegold wrote:But how did "めちゃくちゃ" become "confused"?
It became "confusion" in great part because I had never before heard the word. I remember it took me a a really long while to decode the phrase "壮快なカットのめちゃくちゃ". First I couldn't decide whether "壮快" was supposed to modify just the word カット or the entire phrase "カットのめちゃくちゃ", and when the time came to actually translate "めちゃくちゃ", my mind had apparently already changed the order of the words involved (as can be seen in my Swedish translation, "upplyftande förvirringsklipp"). And by then "confusion" was the only translation I could find that made even the remotest kind of sense. Actually, this phrase still confuses the hell out of me, so I am just gonna stop thinking about it now. Hope it goes away ;)
[size=200]L・ロビン・ニルソン[/size]

[url]http://www.politicalcompass.org[/url]
[b]Economic Left/Right: 9.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.21[/b]

Post Reply