Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Translation' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Translation'

Re: Fill-up or Fill-out

nona the brit — Sat, 10 May 2008 08:53:32 GMT

Well, native English speakers would never say 'fill up' a form. It may have become a local variant perhaps, if you hear it a lot, or it could be something that people bring in as a direct translation from their native language without considering that the preposition may be different in English.

In mainstream English either 'fill out' or 'fill in'

Re: Preposition: For

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:04:23 GMT

Words have many meanings and uses. For to doesnÂ´t exist in English as one is trying to put a preposition in front of a infinitive verb.This is a very common translation error in Spanish.For- is used in questions about the purpose ,destination beneficiaries What is this for? I left for Mexico. Here is a gift for you. He had potatoes for dinner.For is used in time expression concerning the duration over a period of time. For + length of time (for ages) (for a month, day, year, week, 5 hours etc)For all = notwithstanding , even if (For all I know he is crazy.) For= considering that (ItÂ´s a fine day for mid-DecemberFor = in favor of, on the side of, ( He is for going to the park) or ( I am for the death penalty)But for = a negative condition, exception or absence. I would have got here on time but for the traffic jam.For can be a conjunction: For connects a fact with its cause Mary went home, for she was sick.They are late, for they got lost.Common collocations of FOR: apologize for, blame for, care for, excuse for , fight for, forgive for, hope for, pay for, pray for, substitute for thank for vote for, bad for, difficult for eager for, easy for, good for ,grateful for, hard for, hungry for, known for, prepared for, qualified for, ready for, remembered for, responsible for, sorry for, suitable for, thirsty for, for example, for the love of God. for instance.

Re: Preposition: For

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:02:48 GMT

Words have many meanings and uses. (For to) doesnÂ´t exist in English as one is trying to put a preposition in front of a infinitive verb.This is a very common translation error in Spanish.For- is used in questions and concerns the purpose ,destination and beneficiaries What is this for? I left for Mexico. Here is a gift for you. He had potatoes for dinner.For is used in time expression concerning the duration over a period of time. For + length of time (for ages) (for a month, day, year, week, 5 hours etc)For all = notwithstanding , even if (For all I know he is crazy.) For= considering that (ItÂ´s a fine day for mid-December)For = in favor of, on the side of, ( He is for going to the park) or ( I am for the death penalty)But for = a negative condition, exception or absence. (I would have got here on time but for the traffic jam.)For can be a conjunction: For connects a fact with its cause Mary went home, for she was sick.They are late, for they got lost.Common collocations of FOR: apologize for, blame for, care for, excuse for , fight for, forgive for, hope for, pay for, pray for, substitute for, thank for, vote for, bad for, difficult for, eager for, easy for, good for ,grateful for, hard for, hungry for, known for, prepared for, qualified for, ready for, remembered for, responsible for, sorry for, suitable for, thirsty for, for example, for the love of God. for instance.

Mistakes made by Chinese Learners

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:30:26 GMT

Hi everyone

I just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:

Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as rude/inconsiderate, more serious transfer may affect comprehensiveness.
No inflections in L1 - tenses difficult to learn in L2 as L1 has no true tenses and concept of time is expressed by adverbs/implicit or contextual assumptions.
Difficulty distinguishing [r] & - Does anyone know why this is as I can't find a reason?!!
Prepositions such as 'on', 'in' & 'at' have one chinese translation in many contexts, 'zai' - may be confused resulting in phrases such as 'on Taiwan' instead of 'in Taiwan'.
Use of awkward gerunds e.g. 'no noising', excessive use of verbs ending in 'ing' e.g. 'do not climbing', confusion of 'ed' & 'ing' verbs e.g. 'i am bored' vs 'i am boring' --- all of these errors occur because verbs are not conjugated in chinese, for tense or pronoun.
No equivalent word for 'the' so may be used excessively when not needed e.g. 'The China' or missed out when needed. May also be confused with 'a'/'an'.
Confusion over countable and uncountable nouns, use of 'how much?' vs 'how many?' - leads to phrases such as 'I want a soup' & 'a lot of shoe'. This is due to there not being plurals in chinese - no inflections.

Switching between 'he' & 'she' - Does anyone know why this is?

If anyone can think of anymore it would be greatly appreciated or if anyone knows the answers to my questions about gender switching and distinguishing [r] & this would also help a lot!!

Thank you in advance.

Shannon

Re: People fought in a Chinese translation forum

nona the brit — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:22:55 GMT

Long sentences are not wrong in themselves but very complex structures are probably best avoided until you are really fluent. They tend to be used for more formal writing and care needs to be taken that they do not become confusing for the reader. It's more a style issue.

Actually, looking again a little more carefully, you don't really have a noun/adjective problem. It's hard to say exactly what isn't quite right - sometimes it's an odd word choice, or odd phrasing, or incorrect preposition, for example. I'd say you are 80% there so just keep on practising and ignore rude idiots on forums :-)

Re: What is the difference between "Talk"(VERB) and "Speak"(VERB)

Hoa Thai — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:53:06 GMT

Hi,

When I first learned English, hear and listen were clear to me. The later requires the attentiveness of a listener. However, talk and speak ran my teacher in circle. He took an English-Vietnamese dictionary and told us to stick with the translation and then he failed to reason why some English sentences we presented to him begged for different interpretation! Today seeing this question again, I dearly miss him for the pain he went through trying to give us a bit of his knowledge. Therefore, I thought maybe this is a good opportunity for me to go through what he went through.

Please allow me to deduct slowly.

1. Talk and speak are both voice related, so sound making cannot be contributed solely to either one.

2. We can attach preposition of or about to both talk and speak. Therefore, neither word owns the right to content.

3. When we speak or talk, we could be interrupted for questioning. Of course, we can also attach preposition to or with to both of them Therefore, neither word owns the right to interaction either.

4. When a baby utters the first sound that is similar to a word we know, we excitedly say, âs/he speaks.â When the baby can string a few words together, in responding to the surrounding stimulating environment, either to a toy or to people, we claim, âs/he talks.â Talk seems to win the conversational aspect (two-way communication goes with talk albeit the listener might not say a word â uni-directional delivery goes with speak).

5. We speak a language; we donât talk a language unless we mean knowing how to speak in (e.g., talk French â idiom). Again, in this case, speak is confined to the speaker (i.e., one-way).

6 When we phone people (i.e., we initiate the connection):
- Most often we donât know whether the person we phone is available or not, we say, âIs â¦ there?â, or politely âMay / Could I speak to â¦â (again, one-way).-
- However, if we yearn for a conversation / an exchange, we ask, âMay I talk to â¦â (two-way).

7. When we suggest people to listen to a speech, we might say,â listen to his talkâ but virtually none âlisten to his speak.â Talk seems to require more attention than speak. It requires the listeners to connect, to feel, to understand.. (one-way delivery, two-way sharing).

8. âSpeaker of the houseâ not âTalker of the houseâ- (uni-voice).

Inference:

talk: bi-directional communication.
speak: uni-directional communication.

Cheers,
Hoa Thai

Re: Specific questions about translation of a CV

Feebs11 — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:28:40 GMT

Colombo wrote:
I'm trying to translate my CV into English, but I'm finding a lot of difficulties. Apart from the overall chronic style of the result, there are certain things that I find I don't know how to say. I'm copying a list here, in case someone can lend me a hand (for which I'd be immensely grateful). I am sorry to ask so many questions (I've tried to find the answers in dictionaries before asking), and I hope I'm writing in the correct forum (I think all my questions are more voabulary- than grammar-oriented).

- Should the names of institutions be translated? I don't do so, in general, but I wonder whether it could/should be done when the translation is literal and unequivocal (for example, like in "Polytechnic University of Madrid"), or when it might be useful to know what the institution is (like in "Programme for the Assessment of Teachers of the Spanish Office for the Assessment of Quality and Credentials"... Whatever that is - I hardly understand it, even in Spanish!) Not necessary to do so - if you feel there is a difficulty, put the translation in brackets.

- Which preposition must I use to indicate where I got a degree? "A degree from the University X"? Yes

- Talking of degrees, I'm not sure which one I've got. I know there are BSc, MSc and PhD, but I don't know very well how to determine whether what I've got is a BSc or a MSc. Does one choose between one and the other, or does one need to have a BSc in order to study a MSc? Here in Spain, one can choose between studying a short or a long degree (3 or 4 years in the first case, 6 in the second). After getting any of these degrees, one can start working towards a PhD directly (I mean, those people who have studied the short degree don't need to compensate by studying another couple of years before beginning their PhD studies). I've got one of the long degrees (6 years), so would that be a BSc or a MSc? I'd like to make it clear that it's been a long degree, but I don't know whether I should have made some kind of post-graduate studies in order to call it a MSc. And also, are the BSc and the MSc the same things in British and American English?   BSc = Bachelor of Science; MSc = Master of Science - the latter indicates you have taken a further degree. Put the Spanish name of your degree and explain its nature if asked.

- In these 6-year degrees, after one has passed all the subjects, a final research work must be done in order to get the degree. What's its name (if there's an equivalence) in the UK and the US? Post-graduate study/research.

- PhD degrees over here consist of two separate parts: two years of courses and two-to-infinite years of research work. Once you've finished the first of these parts, you get a certificate stating you've studied all those courses (in case someone knows the Spanish universitary structure, I'm taking about the "Diploma de Estudios Avanzados"). Is there anything equivalent in the British and American systems? I don't think I could call it a MSc, since this certificate's actually a part of the PhD degree. In the UK a university is free to admit anyone to a Ph.D. programme; however, in practice, admission is usually conditional on the prospective student having successfully completed an undergraduate degree with at least upper second class honours, or a postgraduate master's degree

- Is there any technical established term for a "course on work-related risks"? I've translated it directly from Spanish, but I don't know whether there is a better way to say it (although I think it's easily understood as it is). Not as such - there are many courses that include this topic, particularly those relating to Health and Safety or Physiotherapy.

- What is the technical term for a person who is in charge of a R&D project? "Head researcher"? Possibly "Supervisor".

- Is it right to say "Assistant PhD teacher" to indicate a job as assistant teacher for which a PhD degree is required (not a job as assistant teacher for PhD students). Not a term that is used in the UK. It would probalby be termed "Assistant Teacher. This post requires a PhD or equivalent."

- Another question about prepositions: does one play an instrument in an orchestra?   Yes

- Is it right to say something like "2003: beginning of studies of x"? "began studies relating to...."/"started studies of...."

- Could anyone tell me where I can find the "official" names of the subjects in a music degree? Or, more specifically, I need to know the name of a subject in which the different musical forms and structures are studied. Some sites for UK universities:   http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/courses/musi.shtml:
http://www.ukwebstart.com/musicdrama-colleges.html
Thank you very much in advance for your help! I would have copied here the whole CV, but I thought that would be too much...

Specific questions about translation of a CV

Colombo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:07:42 GMT

I'm trying to translate my CV into English, but I'm finding a lot of difficulties. Apart from the overall chronic style of the result, there are certain things that I find I don't know how to say. I'm copying a list here, in case someone can lend me a hand (for which I'd be immensely grateful). I am sorry to ask so many questions (I've tried to find the answers in dictionaries before asking), and I hope I'm writing in the correct forum (I think all my questions are more voabulary- than grammar-oriented).

- Should the names of institutions be translated? I don't do so, in general, but I wonder whether it could/should be done when the translation is literal and unequivocal (for example, like in "Polytechnic University of Madrid"), or when it might be useful to know what the institution is (like in "Programme for the Assessment of Teachers of the Spanish Office for the Assessment of Quality and Credentials"... Whatever that is - I hardly understand it, even in Spanish!)

- Which preposition must I use to indicate where I got a degree? "A degree from the University X"?

- Talking of degrees, I'm not sure which one I've got. I know there are BSc, MSc and PhD, but I don't know very well how to determine whether what I've got is a BSc or a MSc. Does one choose between one and the other, or does one need to have a BSc in order to study a MSc? Here in Spain, one can choose between studying a short or a long degree (3 or 4 years in the first case, 6 in the second). After getting any of these degrees, one can start working towards a PhD directly (I mean, those people who have studied the short degree don't need to compensate by studying another couple of years before beginning their PhD studies). I've got one of the long degrees (6 years), so would that be a BSc or a MSc? I'd like to make it clear that it's been a long degree, but I don't know whether I should have made some kind of post-graduate studies in order to call it a MSc. And also, are the BSc and the MSc the same things in British and American English?

- In these 6-year degrees, after one has passed all the subjects, a final research work must be done in order to get the degree. What's its name (if there's an equivalence) in the UK and the US?

- PhD degrees over here consist of two separate parts: two years of courses and two-to-infinite years of research work. Once you've finished the first of these parts, you get a certificate stating you've studied all those courses (in case someone knows the Spanish universitary structure, I'm taking about the "Diploma de Estudios Avanzados"). Is there anything equivalent in the British and American systems? I don't think I could call it a MSc, since this certificate's actually a part of the PhD degree.

- Is there any technical established term for a "course on work-related risks"? I've translated it directly from Spanish, but I don't know whether there is a better way to say it (although I think it's easily understood as it is).

- What is the technical term for a person who is in charge of a R&D project? "Head researcher"?

- Is it right to say "Assistant PhD teacher" to indicate a job as assistant teacher for which a PhD degree is required (not a job as assistant teacher for PhD students).

- Another question about prepositions: does one play an instrument in an orchestra?

- Is it right to say something like "2003: beginning of studies of x"?

- Could anyone tell me where I can find the "official" names of the subjects in a music degree? Or, more specifically, I need to know the name of a subject in which the different musical forms and structures are studied.

Thank you very much in advance for your help! I would have copied here the whole CV, but I thought that would be too much...

Re: in despite of

Clive — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:53:43 GMT

Hi,

You might like to look at a dictionary of etymology. eg

despite

1297, from O.Fr. despit, from L. despectus "a looking down on," from despicere (see despise). The preposition (1593) is short for in despite of (1292), a loan-translation of Fr. en despit de "in contempt of." Almost became despight during 16c. spelling reform.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=despite&searchmode=none

spite (n.)

c.1300, shortened form of despit "malice" (see despite). Corresponding to M.Du. spijt, M.L.G. spyt, M.Swed. spit. Commonly spelled spight c.1575-1700. The verb is attested from c.1400. Phrase in spite of is recorded from c.1400.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=spite&searchmode=none

Despite all this information, please note this. If you say 'In despite of . . . ' today, most people willl simply think that you are speaking poor English that sounds odd and unidiomatic.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: At any moment in time?

Ruslana — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:51:25 GMT

Yes, but I wonder why of is wrong. As I know, this preposition may be used between two nouns to make the genitive. Moment is a noun, and so is time.

Maybe this misunderstanding comes from Russian because the verbatim translation of the phrase would be in the genitive (Moment of what? Moment of time). It's a pity it's not acceptable in English. It would make things easier.