[Sca-cooks] Translations

Suey lordhunt at gmail.com
Fri May 2 12:23:10 PDT 2008


Phil Troy wrote:

> In the case of the link to the Godefroy dictionary, as I said, I'm not  
> very fluent in standard conversational French, but this is not  
> something for me to be ashamed of, or for me to feel victimized by  
> some failure to address my needs. Nobody's obliged to be responsible  
> for my education but myself. If I can't get the gist of it, the  
> Babelfish translation site isn't bad if used correctly, and if I have  
> to ask for help, there's no more shame in asking for it than there is  
> in giving it when asked-- we're brothers and sisters in the knife, the  
> apron, the spoon, the cooking-pot, and in the book.Today's Topics:
>
>   
I have never heard of Godefroy but I have tried Babelfish and it is a 
joke! As first it was a laugh at the stupid automated translation it 
made from Spanish into English and then it became an insult. Sure I have 
gone to bi-lingual dictionaries. When I have a clue of the language 
after a long time I can make some sense of somethings but not of others 
and may be wrong with others. Total that is most time consuming and my 
life is not based on translating SCA messages. I have other things to do.
My point is that you can that if quoting in the original language 
improves the communication fine is but I think it rude to not let those 
who don't happen to speak the language have a clue as to what you are 
talking about. Maybe  you are not fluent in French and I am or perhaps 
you are in German and I am not. That is not the issue, the issue is not 
say to the reader - 'oh, you did not understand? Well go to an automatic 
translator or a fat dictionary and figure it out, I don't have time for 
you. - My reaction as a listener is that he who cannot explain what he 
is talking about in the common language of the group is a snob too 
pompous to condescend to our little minds or he just does not know what 
he is talking about.
Suey




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