On Wed, 05 Jul 2000, Rieks W. Torringa wrote:
> >There is always some loss of information, an exact 1-on-1 translation is
> >impossible between natural languages.
>
> Disagreed. Some ways of saying something might be slightly different, but
> the thing that is being said is quite well translatable in another
> language, even if the difference is as huge as the one between Japanese
> and English.
If exact 1-on-1 translation would be possible, a computer could do it
perfectly.
The problem is that the translator has to interpret the meaning of the
text, "the thing that is being said", as you call it. Interpreting the text
is not an exact process, as it depends on information that is not in the
literal text itself: context, prior knowledge, culture.
A good translator can come quite close, but you can never claim to have an
exact 1-on-1 translation of any non-trivial text.
> >The most important step is Frontline -> Ikeda, this is a real
> >transformation of information. But, since Ikeda seems quite close to
> >Frontline, information loss may not be severe.
>
> That is quite a contradiction, you write there :)
:)
It's not really a contradiction, it's softening the statement: "not severe"
means there probably is information loss, but not very much.
> >I haven't read MSX Magazine. Is there an announcement from ASCII in it?
>
> Can't remember exactly, but only the fact that a company like ASCII is
> suddenly starting to support a dead system like MSX once again, is
> somewhat obscure. Probably, there is some reason for it.
And I am curious what that reason is...
> Possibly. The only thing we can do is wait and see. I just hate all those
> messages that try to dishonour the project even before started with. You
> don't do any good by doing something like that.
I intended to be critical, but dishonouring was never my intention. Sorry
if it looked that way.
When Anne wrote "I just want to say that I am VERY much surprised how we
react in general about Japanese MSX-developments.....We don't,
actually...;-)", I wanted to explain why it is too early to become all
excited.
"Wait and see" is exactly what I think is the best course of action.
So I'll start now.
Bye,
Maarten
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