Hi, I have some reflections regarding the pair SV -FR. Unlike Bernard Chardonneau I feel that there are considerable differences between the two languages. Below I will list a few, perhaps someone has an idea how to overcome some of them?
1. A native Frenchman has a completely different way of tackling a subject than a Swede. The sentences are often longer and more complicated. On the other hand, Swedes use a lot of subordinate clauses, but Frenchmen prefer other constructs. (We love sentences with "att" = "que", followed by a subordinate clause.) I suppose Apertium would translate more "literally" than a statistical translation engine. This would make the translated text look translated, but that wouldn't be much of a problem if it is easy to understand. But grammatically, a French sentence with "que" would be much more complicated to construct correctly. ex. "Jag är säker på att farfar kommer att känna igen mig." = "Je suis sûr d'être reconnu par le grand-père." (I am sure that the grandfather will recognize me. - e.g. when I am disguised as Santa Claus :-)) 2. A Frenchman prefers "vous" instead of "tu" (you Englishmen make it simple with "you"). In Sweden we began to address each others as "du" (nous tutoyer) in the 60's (the famous "Du-reformen", initiated by Mr Bror Rexed, head of the National Board of Health.) I suppose we have to live with a literal translation (du = tu), and hope that no one will be offended. 3. The personal pronouns and especially the possessive pronouns are tricky. First, in Swedish the genus of the person will decide the genus of the pronoun, not the genus of the object like in French. This is a bit confusing: "Kalles mamma: hans mamma" would become "Le mère de Kalle: sa mère" (Kalle's mother: his mother) and "Lisas `pappa: hennes pappa" would become "Le père de Lisa: son père" (Lisas father: her father). Further, Swedish differentiates between the persons genders in many cases. The translation of the personal pronoun "lui" will be either "honom" (masculine) or "henne" (feminine). ex. "Kalle ringer till henne" = "Kalle lui téléphone" et "Kalle ringer till honom" = "Kalle lui téléphone". A translator has to check to whom "lui" refers, somewhere above in the text. In Swedish there are also two genders for non-humans (a dear animal might be treated as a person instead): n-words (utrum) and t-words (neutrum). (Basically, the n-words are used for anime (living objects) - with many exceptions, I will return to that.) That makes four genders to chose between when translating the French personal pronouns as direct object (object directe), "le" et "la". ex. The boook of Anna Gavalda "Je l'aimé" have the title "Jag älskade honom" in Swedish. (I loved him). When I read the book in French I thought the title meant "Jag älskade henne" (I loved her). I don't know if the translator asked the author. Any how, you will realize that the double meaning is essential if you ever read the book. An other exemple: "Charles la comprend" = "Kalle förstår det" (He understands that) or "Kalle förstår den" (Kalle understands it eg. the cat, he's a cat whisperer :-) ) or "Kalle förstår henne" (Kalle understands her). Finally, it makes a difference if a possessive pronoun refers to the subject or refers to someone else: "Kalle älskar sina hundar. Niklas älskar hans hundar." = "Kalle aimes ses chiens. Niklas aimes ses chiens." (Kalle loves his dogs. Niklas loves his dogs. It's the same dogs, that are kept by Kalle, not by Niklas! Same problem in English.) 4. Missing forms. By some odd reasons some quite frequent Swedish words have acquired the "wrong" genus. This causes a problem with some anime words like "lejon" (lion) and "spöke" (gost). They have got the "non-anime" genus neutrum and have become t-words. This becomes a problem in combination with some adjectives used for anime (living objects), like "rädd" (scared). It is alright to say "En rädd kanin" (a scared rabbit), but impossible to tell that a lion or a ghost is scared! The form is impossible because you cannot add a "t" after a "d" in Swedish. Thus the form is missing! In these cases you have to circumvent the issue by somehow constructing a paraphrase, as the synonyms to "rädd" have quite a different register (registre). When I was young I thought that this was quite natural as both lions and ghosts are brave. I didn't think of the very common word "barn" (child), that causes the same problem. 5. The placement of adjectives. Normally, Swedish adjectives are placed before the noun and French adjectives are placed after the noun. "Den vita hästen" = "Le cheval blanc" But there are some exceptions. Thirst the "BAGS adjectives" treating beauty, age, goodness and size. ex. "Le petit chien" = "Den lilla hunden" Second, in French the meaning might be changed by changing the position of the adjective. ex. "Ma vieille voiture" = "Min gamla bil" (My old car = I have used it for years) et "Cette fois, je vais acheter une voiture nouvelle, et pas un voiture d'occasion." = "Den här gången ska jag köpa en ny bil (nytillverkad) och inte en begagnad. (This time, I will buy a new (brand new) car and not a used car.) Well, there you have got something to get your teeth into :-) Yours, Per Tunedal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second resolution app monitoring today. Free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Apertium-stuff mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/apertium-stuff
