and there are no gulls.
Well, I am sure many houses in Portugal have verandas or porches and many beaches have many gulls.
However, if you consider how many Americans pronounce the word Portugal and how the Portuguese pronounce the name of their country, you will understand my quip.
Many American pronounce the name of the country as Porch-uh-guhl or Porch-you-guhl where "uh" is the most frequent vowel in the English language, the schwa, an unaccented form of a short u. Some may get closer to the Portuguese pronunciation with Porch-uh-gahl.
In the Google Translate (http://translate.google.com/#en/pt/portugese), the English speaker says POUR-chyu-gahl, but the Portuguese speaker says Por-tu-GAHL with the "l" held a bit longer.
Showing posts with label google translate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google translate. Show all posts
Monday, June 03, 2013
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Fun with computer translations
To make some small improvement in our Italian skills, we go to a monthly conversation group. Each month, the organizer emails a reminder, and this last time she asked us to let her know if we'll be coming.
I can read Italian books and newspapers with so-so comprehension, but I have trouble coming up with the simplest everyday phrases, especially if they are not in the present tense. So, I called on the friendly, knowledgable folks at Google Translate.
"We will be there" -> "Ci saremo"
That's OK, but do I want to make a statement of certainty?
"We plan to be there" -> "Pensiamo di esserci"
But that seems to me to mean "we're thinking of being there", implying we haven't made up our minds yet.
"We hope to be there" -> "Speriamo di esserci"
Naw! Hope is not as certain as plan. I guess I'll go with "Ci saremo" and hope that our plans work out:)
Interestingly, Google translated "Pensiamo di esserci" to "We plan to be". My goodness, we plan to be lots of places for many years to come!
Oh yeah! Since May 1 is Labor Day all over Europe, I asked Google to translate "labor day" into Italian. It gave, I kid you not, "Labor day", and pronounced it "lahbor die". However, if I put in "festa dei lavoratori" it gives "labor day".
Ciao!
I can read Italian books and newspapers with so-so comprehension, but I have trouble coming up with the simplest everyday phrases, especially if they are not in the present tense. So, I called on the friendly, knowledgable folks at Google Translate.
"We will be there" -> "Ci saremo"
That's OK, but do I want to make a statement of certainty?
"We plan to be there" -> "Pensiamo di esserci"
But that seems to me to mean "we're thinking of being there", implying we haven't made up our minds yet.
"We hope to be there" -> "Speriamo di esserci"
Naw! Hope is not as certain as plan. I guess I'll go with "Ci saremo" and hope that our plans work out:)
Interestingly, Google translated "Pensiamo di esserci" to "We plan to be". My goodness, we plan to be lots of places for many years to come!
Oh yeah! Since May 1 is Labor Day all over Europe, I asked Google to translate "labor day" into Italian. It gave, I kid you not, "Labor day", and pronounced it "lahbor die". However, if I put in "festa dei lavoratori" it gives "labor day".
Ciao!
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Posters, translations, and strange French idioms
A French friend sent me a poster of a shaven head guy in tights with a "wrap-around" mustache.
Overlaid on the picture was
"L'affiche est aux beaux-artes ce que le catch est aux bonnes manières."
I understood most of it except "le catch". I put the sentence into translate.google and was given
"The poster is in fine ridges that wrestling is good manners."
Ah, so "le catch" is wrestling. So I sent the following correction back to Google.
"The poster is to the fine arts as wrestling is to good manners."
You can see a version of the poster at http://www.ligneasuivre.com.
My friend has worked at Ligne à Suivre for several years.
Overlaid on the picture was
"L'affiche est aux beaux-artes ce que le catch est aux bonnes manières."
I understood most of it except "le catch". I put the sentence into translate.google and was given
"The poster is in fine ridges that wrestling is good manners."
Ah, so "le catch" is wrestling. So I sent the following correction back to Google.
"The poster is to the fine arts as wrestling is to good manners."
You can see a version of the poster at http://www.ligneasuivre.com.
My friend has worked at Ligne à Suivre for several years.
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