Use the archaic "thou". - Ian Parker
On Oct 2, 10:51 am, poacheR wrote: > I've come across this problem in many languages I've tried > translating. Translating from english results in a random choice > between familiar or polite forms of 'you', and singular or plural. A > quick google search shows many others have addressed this issue too, > and the only (unofficial) solution proposed was to use the archaic > 'thou' (and know proper conjugations for the verbs in that form), > which frankly is a bit annoying. Furthermore, it doesn't address the > issue of familiarity plural, as opposed to politeness plural, which > *is* an issue in languages where the polite version is not the 2nd > person plural (such as german, where it is the 3rd person plural). > > Case in point: "You look lovely today" translated to german comes up > as "Du siehst schön heute". What if it's a complement to your boss and > you meant to be polite? Then you're screwed :p > Furthermore, adding "You look lovely today, kids", yields "Du siehst > schön heute, Kinder" which makes no sense grammatically. It should > either be "Ihr sieht", or "Sie sehen" depending on whether you're > talking to your kids, or you're a nanny (for instance). Yes, there's > an option to submit a better translation, but that's not the problem > here, as the first translation given could be correct, depending on > the context. > > Can we come up with a standard way of translating to the familiar > version and polite version when appropriate? > > Ideas: > > - The usual dictionary way of doing it by appending tags after the > word, e.g. '(fam.)' to familiar forms, (pol.) for polite, (sing.) for > singular, (pl.) for plural, or some variation of this. > > - Or, better yet, since this is an online service, you could make a > small popup come up (in the same way you've implemented a selection > popup when one types phonetically - works great in greek and russian > btw, thanks) which allows you to specify which form of 'you' you're > after, familiar singular, familiar plural, politeness singular, or > politeness plural. I can see this being a bit of a bother for copied > passages though; you'd have to first be able to activate the popup, > and then go through all the 'you' words in the text. > > - You could have a checkbox in english (or any other language not > having politeness forms) where you can specify explicitly whether you > are referring to familiar singular, familiar plural, politeness > singular, or politeness plural, in the entire passage translated > above. This should be acceptable since one would usually only stick to > one form in a reasonably short passage. > > - Output all 4 versions and have the user select which one it is they > meant (no need for permutations due to all the times 'you' is used in > the passage. Just stick to one form throughout, and give 4 versions of > the translation, 1 for each form of 'you'). While this may be > cumbersome / dense-looking output for larger passages, it's perfect > for translation of one-liners (like the example given above). > Alternatively, have a drop-down list you can select the right form > with, at output level (as opposed to input-level as in the previous > suggestion) > > - All of the above combined ;) > > Thanks for your consideration! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "General" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-translate-general?hl=en.
