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

ice cream portions & else

Fishelli — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 21:39:00 GMT

Hi!
Is there in english a specific name for ice cream portion? (Here's a sample of what I mean - www.pregel.it/imgup/boero.jpg ) Is it OK to use direct polish translation - "ice cream ball"? What else can I use instead of "portion" in this case?
What about things covering ice cream (cherries, chocolate...)? Are they all just "toppings" - no matter liquid or solid ones?

Re: How can you tell whether someone is a non-native speaker?

julielai — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 22:38:16 GMT

Just out of curiosity, Mr. P, how do you distinguish a native speaker who's learned a non-standard form of English from a decent non-native speaker? (e.g. How can you tell if a speaker born in India, Singapore or other Asian countries is native?)

MrPedantic wrote:

1. Discrepancies of register. A non-native speaker's English may be impeccable, for the most part; but slight failures of tone or register are most noticeable, in impeccable English. For instance, the non-native may use a word which a native speaker of that kind of English would never use in that context. Or a word may be used in a grammatical but unusual way. The commonest words are the most treacherous, in this connection: "quite", "nice", etc.

2. Absence of context. It's very difficult to provide sample sentences or chat for any length of time without revealing something about your background. When non-native speakers are writing naturally, they reveal something of their native background. When they are writing carefully, however, and perhaps do not wish to be taken for a native speaker, they reveal nothing. There may be literary references, for instance; but the little everyday details are missing.

3. Literary echoes. Sometimes non-native speakers use phrases they have come across in Shakespeare, Dickens, etc., or unwittingly catch the rhythm of well known writers.

4. Overly pure or consistent diction. By which I mean the kind of vocabulary we find in e.g. Jowett's translation of Plato. Non-native speakers who have reached a certain proficiency often dislike recent additions to everyday vocabulary, for instance.

5. Rhythm. Non-native speakers often bring a little of their native rhythm into English. The clauses may be not quite the right length; the pauses may sound mannered.

6. Grammatical regularity combined with inappropriate idioms. Grammar is the weakness of native speakers; idiom is the weakness of non-native speakers.

Maybe other members will have other ideas.

MrP

Re: How can you tell whether someone is a non-native speaker?

MrPedantic — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:18:41 GMT

Hello EU

Here are some things that occur to me:

1. Discrepancies of register. A non-native speaker's English may be impeccable, for the most part; but slight failures of tone or register are most noticeable, in impeccable English. For instance, the non-native may use a word which a native speaker of that kind of English would never use in that context. Or a word may be used in a grammatical but unusual way. The commonest words are the most treacherous, in this connection: "quite", "nice", etc.

2. Absence of context. It's very difficult to provide sample sentences or chat for any length of time without revealing something about your background. When non-native speakers are writing naturally, they reveal something of their native background. When they are writing carefully, however, and perhaps do not wish to be taken for a native speaker, they reveal nothing. There may be literary references, for instance; but the little everyday details are missing.

3. Literary echoes. Sometimes non-native speakers use phrases they have come across in Shakespeare, Dickens, etc., or unwittingly catch the rhythm of well known writers.

4. Overly pure or consistent diction. By which I mean the kind of vocabulary we find in e.g. Jowett's translation of Plato. Non-native speakers who have reached a certain proficiency often dislike recent additions to everyday vocabulary, for instance.

5. Rhythm. Non-native speakers often bring a little of their native rhythm into English. The clauses may be not quite the right length; the pauses may sound mannered.

6. Grammatical regularity combined with inappropriate idioms. Grammar is the weakness of native speakers; idiom is the weakness of non-native speakers.

Maybe other members will have other ideas.

MrP

Re: looking in at the dining-room

Marius Hancu — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:32:05 GMT

SpongeBarb wrote:
Well, I assumed a French-English translator would know what he was talking about. I was wrong.

I don't see where you assume he/she made an error in his translation.

This is the original French version:
http://jydupuis.apinc.org/vents/verne4.pdf

To me, this particular online translation
Sample text for Library of Congress control number 2003059947
Journey to the centre of the earth / Jules Vern
is faithful to the original at this particular point:

half opening the dining-room door.
en entrabaillant la porte de la salle a manger

entrebÃ¢iller
Usage: French word
transitive verb : to open halfway
- s'entrebÃ¢iller reflexive verb

can anyone help with this please?

Mashmellow — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:17:30 GMT

i am trying to do a translation. The context is discussions about outsourcing problems. The sentence where i have a problem is "The question is can i do this function using in house resources better, more cost effectively and with less risk than an external service provider?" i am not sure if the "better" is used to describe" do this function better " or " using in house resources better"? if it is the latter, i think it's not logical because an external service provider is not going to use our in house resources. therefore, the comparison doesn't exist.the sample texts i got tends to explain it in this way, but i myself prefer the first explanation.could anyone give me a hand by choosing one and giving your reasons? thank you very much!

preparat

Antonija — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:26:21 GMT

Hi,

I've seen the word medical preparat in many languages but not in English. It is even similar in Croatian. It has several meanings: 1) SOME KIND OF CHEMICAL COMPOUND WHICH IS TO BE TESTED,

2) CURE, MEDICINE

3) A SAMPLE OF DEAD MAN'S BODY ON WHICH STUDENTS OF MEDICINE PRACTICE.

Do you happen to know this word in English, because I cannot find translation.

Thank you

Re: please make them natural

Taka — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:05:39 GMT

Do you mean this one?

no matter how modern politics become

That's the only one I cited directly from the sample answers of my book. My translation would be something like 'no matter how modernized their systems have become.' Does it make sense?

About the other parts on which you made corrections, are they minor adoptation so they sounds more natural? Or are they major one because the original is totally werid?

Bathroom/toilet

paco2004 — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 11:06:56 GMT

Hello guys

I'm interested in a thing some of you wouldn't like to talk about. If you get unpleased reading this post, I'm sorry for it.

The thing is how you would ask to someone when you have an urge to urinate in a place you visit for the first time. A phrase I first came across with is "Excuse me, where is the toilet?" as a direct translation of my mother tongue Japanese and taught in English class when I was a student. But I remember once I was told in an English learners' forum that, in USA, "toilet" refers to the fixture rather than a room and Americans feel it is vulgar to say like "go to the toilet". Other possible word for this purpose may be lavatory, bathroom (bath room), restroom (rest room), and washroom (wash room).

So I googled about those words putting X to a phrase "to the X and" ("and" is inserted to exclude adjective uses of the word X). The domain EDU was selected as the representative of AmE speakers' sites. The results are as follows;

[1] Countries where "bathroom" is the word most frequently used.

USA (sample number 7071)
1. bathroom 82.4 % 2. restroom 12.6 % 3. toilet 3.3 % 4. washroom 1.1 % 5. lavatory 0.6 %
Canada (sample number 5313)
1. bathroom 67.4 % 2. washroom 20.2 % 3. toilet 8.0 % 4. restroom 4.3 % 5. lavatory 0.1 %
India (sample number 220)
1. bathroom 96.4 % 2. toilet 3.2 % 3. lavatory 0.5 % 4. washroom 0.0 % 5. restroom 0.0 %
Japan (sample number 270)
1. bathroom 58.9 % 2. toilet 21.1 % 3. lavatory 10.7 % 4. washroom 7.0 % 5. restroom 2.2 %

[2] Countries where "toilet" is the word most frequently used.

Australia (sample number 4386)
1. toilet 82.5 % 2. bathroom 14.8 % 3. restroom 1.4 % 4. washroom 0.7 % 5. lavatory 0.7 %
Britain (sample number 16449)
1. toilet 54.4 % 2. bathroom 42.4 % 3. lavatory 1.2 % 4. restroom 0.7 % 5. washroom 0.6 %
New Zealand (sample number 671)
1. toilet 52.9 % 2. bathroom 44.6 % 3. restroom 1.4 % 4. washroom 0.7 % 5. lavatory 0.7 %
Hong Kong (sample number 69)
1. toilet 65.2 % 2. bathroom 26.1 % 3. washroom 5.8 % 4. restroom 2.9 % 5. lavatory 0.0 %

Though "bathroom" and "toilet" are most frequently used two words, there are some differences in the preference between countries. A striking fact is that "toilet" is preferred in Australia much more than in Britain. Another impressive fact is Canadians use "washroom" next to "bathroom" despite the fact it is the last choice by British people and the fourth choice by Amricans. I am wondering why so.

paco

How to critique a journal?

chw210 — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 19:54:33 GMT

Hi everyone
Here is my first draft of critiquing a journal. I am not sure if I am on the right track. Can anyone give me some suggestions and correct my grammar? Thanks.

Critique of âThe Effects of Amount and Type of Exposure on Adult Learnersâ L2 Development in SLAâ

This research attempts to investigate the interaction between the amount and type of exposure affect adult learnersâ language learning based on an experiment study. It has two independent variablesâamount (single and multiple) and type (teacher-centered and learner-centered) while the dependent variable is their morphological performance on recognition and written work.
There are several strengths in designing the research. First, to control the extraneous variables, the researcher had monitored the subjectsâ prior knowledge, level of proficiency, and the experiment time to be consistent. They had no prior knowledge and were freshmen in the same programs and each group of subjects received the same amount time for instruction. The careful control of extraneous variables help increased the internal and external validity so I consider it as one of the strength. Another strength is the clear distinction of teacher- and learner-centered instruction. The design of cross puzzle well represented a strategy of learner-centered learning. Third, the assessment task the researcher used to measure participantsâ recognition and written task in Appendix C and D are reliable. The first language (English) translation help subjects focus only on the morphological form by guessing the meaning of the sentence.
On the other hand, there were some key points ignored by the researcher so I pointed out 8 weaknesses in the following paragraphs. Those points needed to be further explained or the conclusion cannot be supported by the result.
The first problem is the selection of the sampling. We only learned that all these 88 subjects were enrolled in eight sections of a first-year Spanish program and they had received the same amount of the formal exposure to Spanish. Though the author thinks he randomly assigned his subjects to his four sections, it may seriously weaken the result if these eight sections were divided non-randomly. For example, the program organized the eight sections according to their entrance examination or their IQ. Thus, it is necessary to know if the program allocates these freshmen to the eight sections for any specific purpose or they are just randomly organized.
Second, this study cannot be generalized to all the population âall ESL learnersâif the subjectsâ culture background, age are limited. Learners in some learn more effectively through lecture while others learn better through problem-solving task. In real world, the ages of adult were widely ranged but the sample are all limited to young adults (freshman). Therefore, the result can not be generalized to all second language adult learners if the subjects are not culturally diverse and wild age ranged.
Third, the subjectsâ attitude may affect the resultânot a long-term but shout-term memory. The author needed to clarify if the participants were informed to have three posttests in advance, especially the last two posttests. If they know they will have a test on week 11 and 14 and they worry about the result of the test will be part of the course evaluation, they will review the morphology themselves before taking the posttests in order to perform better. In this way, the result, as the author considered to be the effect of long-term memory, is still based on a performance on short-term memory.
Fourth, the result may be invalid if the three posttests were not held by all subjects at the same period of time. The later group who took the posttest might have higher performance if they asked the other groups about the test form. Thus, the author needed to indicate whether these four groups take the three posttests at the same period of the time.
Fifth, the result will also be invalid if a researcher plays a role of an observer rather than a participant. In this research, the researcher said âI alerted the TC group to the preterit forms of âir verbs by writing the verbal paradigmâ¦I provided a limited teacher-center drill.â Since he conducted all the research process, he may have a bias or a hypothesis in his mind, itâs not appropriate for him to be one of the participants.
Sixth, although the term âsingle exposureâ is clearly explained as âthe targeted form(s) was/were presented during one specific period of exposure..,â the term âmultiple exposuresâ are ambiguous. The term might imply repeated exposure but it did not indicate how frequent the target morphological forms are reviewed. Will this frequency take out other parts of learning?
Seventh, the questionnaire should be done in the early stage of the experiment rather than at the end. Leow indicated the purpose of his questionnaire is âto ensure that the pool was representative of L2 language learners who lack formal exposure to these forms before and during the course of the studyâ¦â What confused me is that the purpose of the questionnaire wasâ to be sure that the subjects had no prior knowledge about the morphological form. Therefore, it needed to be done in the beginning of the experiment rather than at the end of the study. Besides, the researcher did not mention how he dealt with those whose answers are both (a), indicating he or she knew/recognize these forms before doing the experiment and was exposed to most of these forms outside of the period of the study.
Eighth, another problem with the study was the insufficient analysis of the data. Although the mean score in table 4 supported the finding that both multiple and learner-centered exposures benefits to morphological forms, the p value in pretest and posttest are .40 and .96 implied the high possibility of error to take place. Besides, there was no information about the full score of the test. Without full score, we never knew how high is high and how low is low. If the full score is 20, even the mean score of learner-centered with multiple exposures (group 4, scored 8.48), is not high enough.
In summary, the advantages of the study are well control the extraneous variablesâno prior knowledge, the same level of schooling and amount of instruction and the clear distinction between teacher and learner centered instruction. The English translation also helped eliminate the distraction from morphological form. However, the researcher needs to provide more specific information on how he chose the subject and whether the tests are done at the same time. Besides, he also needed to mention the subjectsâ attitude toward the experiment and why he conducted the questionnaire at the end of the experiment. With the high p value, the data is not significant.