Broken Translation Game 2017

[księżycowy]

Well, it could have just as easily been "country" in my translation. I decided to be a little playful with my translation in spots.

[kevin]

It's interesting how "village" became "country" really early on, only to end up as "land".

Apparently Italian "paese" can mean both village and country?

Also, the part where the donkey starts braying (or screaming in some translations) seems to have disappeared.

If Google Translate is worth anything, that must have happened in the translation into Chinese.

[księżycowy]

So kevin, how did I do on my translation overall? Any other concerns?

[IpseDixit]

It's interesting how "village" became "country" really early on, only to end up as "land".

Apparently Italian "paese" can mean both village and country?

Yep

[Car]

Ah, so Car misread "aaitjes" as "aaltjes". That does make a difference.

I didn't misread it, it wasn't in the dictionary and I just didn't notice it suggested another word instead.

[kevin]

So kevin, how did I do on my translation overall? Any other concerns?

To be honest, I'm surprised how well you did, because I really don't think this text was on a beginner level. Maith thú!

I think these are the only major changes between what I wanted to say and what your result was:

1. caithfidh mé = I must (you translated "I spend time", which would be "caithim am")
2. rófhalsa le siúl = too lazy to walk (though I'm not completetly sure that the Irish is correct there)
3. d'imigh sé leis = he went away

[księżycowy]

Yeah, it was a pretty tough challenge, but I thought I did a pretty good job myself. Go raibh maith agat!

1. caithfidh mé = I must (you translated "I spend time", which would be "caithim am")

I suspected it was something like that. I just couldn't exactly find that translation for some reason. I mean in my head.

3. d'imigh sé leis = he went away

Yeah, I couldn't decide if leis refered to the man or the donkey.

[kevin]

3. d'imigh sé leis = he went away

Yeah, I couldn't decide if leis refered to the man or the donkey.

Oh, good point. The sentence might actually be ambiguous.

[księżycowy]

I'm not sure if it works like that in Irish, but it sure confused me.

[IpseDixit]

Anyways

Non voleva saperne di muoversi meaning "he wouldn't move" / "he had no intention of moving" for some reason became something about being too lazy to move, and a testa bassa (literally: with the head low) is an idiomatic phrase meaning "in a humble/contrite way" but apparently was translated in a more literal way.

[dEhiN]

Yeah, I couldn't decide if leis refered to the man or the donkey.

Oh, good point. The sentence might actually be ambiguous.

That could be my fault. As I mentioned before, the Portuguese translation just had então (which I took to mean "then", but I guess could also mean "so") as the conjunction between the two clauses. After thinking about it, I decided the sculptor must've changed his mind, lowered his head and kept walking. So I introduced mais ensuite "but then/later" which created the contrast.

I'm curious about my French translation. For those who know both Portuguese and French, can you spot anything I could've improved upon or perhaps translated incorrectly?

I have to say, I really enjoyed that! It was quite fun and not too difficult to do. It helped of course that the two languages are in the same language family and fairly similar in many constructions.

ETA:

Non voleva saperne di muoversi meaning "he wouldn't move" / "he had no intention of moving" for some reason became something about being too lazy to move

The Portuguese translation had mas ele estava com muita preguiça para andar which literally translates to "but he was with much laziness to walk", which I carried over into my French translation: mais il était très paresseux pour se promener "he was too lazy to walk/move". I wonder if perhaps the Portuguese phrasing is an idiomatic way of saying "he had not intention of moving", or if the change occurred from Italian to Chinese?

[IpseDixit]

I can also explain why we ended up with caresses from actions. Basically the Spanish translation had "toque" and since I didn't feel like consulting any dictionary I assumed it had the same meaning as "tocco" in Italian that is "light touch", which I then re-interpreted as "caress".

[Luís]

I’m surprised all the references to “gods” and “goddesses” survived until the end, considering some of the languages involved don’t really care about gender.

Also, “donkey” became “beast” in one sentence and “old and skillful” became “shrewd”.

[dEhiN]

Also, “donkey” became “beast” in one sentence

That was probably on me: the Portuguese had burro de carga in the first reference which I was going to translate as pack donkey. But according to Linguee, "beast of burden" or "workhorse" was a better meaning. I didn't want to put in "workhorse" because of the later references to donkey. So I went with bête de somme or "beast of burden".

[księżycowy]

Also, “donkey” became “beast” in one sentence

Ainmhí iompair means something like beast of burden, so it could be translated a donkey. But the donkey didn't show up specifically until later (an asal).

EDIT: Well there we go. It was dEhiN!

and “old and skillful” became “shrewd”.

I had some choices with the Irish. Críonna can mean "old, wise, skillful, shrewd, grown up, mature, etc.". But I only had the one adjective to go off of.

[kevin]

"old" was lost in Portuguese, it seems.

[vijayjohn]

Also, the part where the donkey starts braying (or screaming in some translations) seems to have disappeared.

If Google Translate is worth anything, that must have happened in the translation into Chinese.

No, actually, that was the Portuguese translation where it was dropped, probably because the expression I used in Chinese (卯足气力叫起来了 mǎozúqìlì jiào qǐlái le, meaning something like 'started shouting at the top of his lungs') was too obscure, and Covered just skipped over it entirely (which is understandable under the circumstances!). The Italian said iniziò a ragliare a squarciagola 'started to bray at the top of his lungs' (in Belarusian, it was just 'loudly'; in Spanish, it was 'very loud(ly)'; and then in Italian, it was at the top of his lungs ), so I was really wondering how to translate that into Chinese. A more normal (and much simpler) translation into Chinese would have been something like 大声叫起来了 dàshēng jiào qǐlái le, but that just means 'started shouting loudly' (which turned out to be exactly what the original said in the first place!) and says nothing about 'the top of his lungs' specifically. On the other hand, 卯足气力 mǎozúqìlì does convey 'at the top of his lungs' but is also a much more obscure expression (I didn't know it myself until I looked it up. I've never seen it despite having several books in Chinese). So I was conflicted: Do I go with the expression that Covered is more likely to understand or the one that makes it harder to break the translation game? I chose to put some faith in Covered and use the one that would make it harder to break the game.

It's interesting how "village" became "country" really early on, only to end up as "land".

Apparently Italian "paese" can mean both village and country?

Yep

Also, I'm not sure what other word for 'country' could have been used in that context (landa?) but guessed that maybe villaggio could be used for 'village' (and maybe città or something for 'town', which is apparently another possible meaning of paese) to avoid ambiguity, so I decided to guess that it meant 'country' here.

Non voleva saperne di muoversi meaning "he wouldn't move" / "he had no intention of moving" for some reason became something about being too lazy to move

Yeah, like I said, it's because that's how the Chinese expression literally translates. I used the expression 懒得动 lǎn de dòng, which means 'not feel like moving' but literally means it (the donkey) was "so lazy it wouldn't move" (懒 lǎn means 'lazy').

and a testa bassa (literally: with the head low) is an idiomatic phrase meaning "in a humble/contrite way" but apparently was translated in a more literal way.

I didn't know that was one of the possible meanings of that expression. I looked it up and found more literal translations, so I went with that.

"old" was lost in Portuguese, it seems.

Yes, 老但也天才 lǎo dàn yě tiāncái 'old but also talented' somehow became just sábio 'wise' in Portuguese.

[aaakknu]

Let's start fubar!

[voron]

I can also explain why we ended up with caresses from actions. Basically the Spanish translation had "toque" and since I didn't feel like consulting any dictionary I assumed it had the same meaning as "tocco" in Italian that is "light touch", which I then re-interpreted as "caress".

Elaine's Turkish translation said "hareketler" (movements), but if I translated it directly like that to Belarusian it would sound odd, almost obscene, so I chose it to be "touches".

I think we all did great! (Also considering that we survived two jumps outside of the Indo-European family). Good job everyone!

[vijayjohn]

We jumped outside the entire Indo-European family twice, yet our biggest translation error was from Dutch to German, the one language pair made up of the most closely related languages.