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

Re: At the stationery shop

Delmobile — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:12:19 GMT

"It is of good quality" is correct but sounds a little stilted, like a translation. In the US you'd be more likely to hear simply, "It's a good-quality folder."

However, you get 10 bonus points for spelling "stationery" correctly and NOT with the "a"!

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: help plzz

Feebs11 — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:55:52 GMT

Marius Hancu wrote:

GreekSoccer.com

Greek Soccer, Greeksoccer.com, Forums - Everything you need ... was diagnosed with a light case of igmoritis sinus that will keep him out for another 2-3 days. ...

I don't think this is the name of a "disease". It seems to be something relating to the sinus, but as none of the online medical sites to do with the sinus and its problems seems to have heard of it, it must be either a transliteration from the Greek or a misspelling of some kind. The other references I can find are one the CancerForums from someone in Greece, and the translation of an article on the problems encountered by divers.

It is probably some kind of sinusitis.

Re: Wacegash

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:25:05 GMT

Thank you for your help. I've finished the translation now. I made it up a bit.
I think you're right about it being offensive. And I'm pretty sure I spelt it right too because I had to google it a couple times before getting the spelling right. That's what it sounds like too. Wacegash.

Re: Please translate these Latin sentences into English.

Tanit — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:44:23 GMT

Hi,

Your sentences contain many mistakes, both spelling and punctuation ones.

The first sentence is part a Christian prayer (shortened form, I put '...' where parts of the text are missing):

Credo in unum Deum Patrem omnipotentem; factorum coeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium ... Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est; et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas... Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit ...

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ... was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures ... And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son ...

This translation is not mine (I only selected the sentences you posted, and changed "We" with "I" because your text reads "credo", 1st person singluar, instead of "credimus", 2nd person plural), but comes from here.

As for your second sentence,

Jackson6612 wrote:

Hominus similis daeus quis chaedit ad Latin.

it's not as famous as the first one; what's more, there are too many mistakes, which make it impossible (for me) to translate it. Could you please check your text? I haven't been studying Latin for many years, but, if my memory serves me correctly, it could be either:

"Homo similis deo qui ..." (homo=man,nominative; deo=God, dative) => It is similar to God a man who ... (this should be the most likely one)

"Homini similis deus qui" (homini=man,dative; deus=God, nominative) => It is similar to man a God who ...

(only assumptions, though!) I cannot go on with the sentence because "chaedit" doesn't exist and I can't imagine what it is supposed to be.

Re: recommand a good dictionary software

Kooyeen — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 22:07:01 GMT

Hi,
I guess you need a translator, not a dictionary, don't you? Or do you need a bilingual dictionary?
If you actually need a translator, I can't recommend any. I've never used translators for the simple reason that they don't work very well. They usually don't take account of the context, spelling, mistakes, and particular expressions. You'll probably end up with a ridiculous translation!
Maybe someone else has used some translators and will recommend a decent one...

Re: how to pronounce numbers

Eng_teach_in_germany — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:04:39 GMT

ok.. I would just like to clarify something - I do in fact make my students aware that zero is commonly pronounced as the letter 'O'. I teach to German people, most of whom are already aware of this due to years of English courses in school, etc..

In German, the word for 'zero' is 'Null' and it's always used for phone numbers. SO, 'Null'='zero'. That is the unamiguous, technically correct and exact translation. I teach the students that it is more correct to say 'zero' because it is literally not the letter 'O', no matter how post-modern you wish to be. I don't make a fuss over it, I'm fully aware that many/most people use 'Oh', and I don't care if my students use 'Oh'. I even use it sometimes myself. It's just not a big deal. As I stated in a previous post, I just tell the students 'the full story'. They are never confused about it afterwards and very little time is required to be spent on it. Similarly, I've spent enough time on it here as well. The End.

In regards to the related topic - whether or not there is actually such a thing as 'correct' English, my response is simply that in practice, 'on the ground' so to speak, an 'anything goes' approach is inappropriate. In a philosophy class it might be fine to discuss how everything's relative and so on, but in real world ESL teaching it's advisable to 'stick to the rules' of English grammar as much as possible. Of course language changes over time. Of course there's no perfect, absolute, master version of English set in stone forever. There are very cohesive standards and rules however(which change gradually over time) which make it possible for us to communicate clearly with each other, and to pass on the knowledge of our language to non-native speakers.

Take for example this (now online) book written 90 years ago, entitled 'How to Speak and Write Correctly':
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/hwswc10h.htm" target="_blank" title="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/hwswc10h.htm">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/hwswc10h.htm</a>
While the author's writing style may seem slightly antiquated, it's still fine and 99% of his description of English grammar still applies today, nearly 100 years later. The other 1% consists of the sort of changes and developents that are often discussed on this forum.

The problem of what is correct or not of course often comes up in TESL when British and American English use different words or spelling. At the end of the day you have to teach either one or the other, or teach both. Usually it depends on which one the client/student is most likely to need.

Re: is this chinglish?

Leolyy — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 17:10:10 GMT

i'm sorry i think i made the wrong spelling, it is "in respect of", but it seems only available in some chinese-english dictioinary, and i dont know if it is really common one, it means "with regard to" or "with respect to" as you've show, well, now i find that this is not exactly but almost the meaning i want to express, and, i came up with another, "in terms of", i think it approachs the meaning much more. i dont know if "in terms of" is as common?

"achieve a satisfactory effect in terms of visual and sensuous feelings"

is this more ok? actually i meant to say "from/in .. aspects/respects" or " from/in the aspects/respects of .. ", because the chinese translation of this phrase is the very meaning i want to write out.

Chengwei Liu

Re: Star Heritage:Translation, Part II

Goodman — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 18:07:10 GMT

Ant_222 wrote:
Â«Have you heard that arrogance gets you nowhere?Â» I agree completely that nobody is obliged to reply, I didn't even imply the opposite. The problem is that I don't want to have two or more parralel threads on the same subject... What arrogance? I was just interested whether I can hope that someone answers or not. If nobody wants to read my long posts, that's ok. If it sounded as if I were arrogant towards the readers, I am sorry.

Your post is warmly received

I did a quick review on your article. Actually the tone sounded pretty good, except a few rough spots on spelling and word choice which are marked. Here it is ....

I chose a dry place and decided to have a rest.

At night I had to orient by touch. Suddenly I fell into a deep pit full of smelly water. I couldn't get out of it...

Suddenly, from the muddy water appeared a strange creature. I had seen something similar on one planet. The large-fanged water-sprite with a fish tail attacked me.

I resisted desperately, but my vigor (no s) were nearly exhausted. Damned planet!

After the fight I could'n come to my senses for a long time. Thanks God, it ended happily. I looked around: the landscape wasn't notable for divercity. In the east I sort of noted some buildings.

The swamp amazed me by its size. But I oriented (did you mean orientated ?) here quite well already. (+)

The night happened to be extremely dark. Too late I noted that a whole flock of night birds was circling over me. Hadrly had I rised my look to the sky, the winged demons pounced on me.

These creatures were too many. I was loosing my vigors.

Somehow I managed to beat off the birds of prey. A couple of huge birds was left to lie on the grass. It was quickly dawning. I felt worn out. A new day was beginning.

It was comfortable to rest here. A warm wind brought the smell of the sea. I was sure the sea was very close.

The swamp had been left behind. I was on a field overgrown with grass. Now I distinctly saw strange metal constructins (structures?) in the east. The steep rocks were still stretching in the south. In the north I was amazed to find an uncomely ( choice of word) path going across the swamp.

It seemed to me that I had been here one time. From the south I was surrounded by rocks, in the west ranged swamps and in the north the path receded into the distance.

I slept for a while on the grass.

I stood at the territory of an abandoned factory. Everything here had grown over with grass. Part of the buildings was runious. Rusty pipes, addle wooden crates and broken glass were everywhere. To the north of the factory were rocks, the swamps strethed to the south.

Passing by the factury I looked at the ruins one more time. It seems (tense), that it was a weapon factory. That was proven by the rusty parts of ancient laser plants and rocket launchers that were scattered everywhere.

I passed the factory by. It was silent and comfortless here. A light wind drove pieces of paper and cellophane across the ground.

Idioms: Piece of Cake or Hard Nut to Crack?

Sindy — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 18:56:30 GMT

Howdy

This is the article I've written a while ago. I hope that it can be interesting for someone. This is one of my first attempts to bring all my thoughts together.

"A language is a living substance, which evolves under the influence of different factors. Being very flexible English language constantly enriches its vocabulary with the words invented by the language speakers, making it more colorful with new idiomatic expressions, and at times refills its stocks with the borrowings and neologisms. English just amazes by its extraordinary linguistic diversity.

It is a language rich in exceptions and spelling traps, where almost every rule is valid 90% of the time. English is a language with a vast idiomatic basis, which makes its learning very exciting and intriguing. There are about 4,000 idioms used in the American English. Wikipedia suggests that âto even explain what they mean needs about 2000 words of the vocabulary. â

Idioms derived from the culture of the nation and from day-to-day life. In real context idioms explain themselves: 9 times out of 10 times, idioms carry their own explanation. The main function of idioms is to paraphrase what is going on, and what is being said.

Idiomatic expressions pervade English with a peculiar flavor and give it astounding variety, bright character and color. They help language learners understand English culture, penetrate into customs and lifestyle of English people, and make a deeper insight into English history.

Idiom is defined as an expression that does not mean what it literally says. Hence, its meaning is often quite different from the word-for-word translation.

The meaning idioms convey is non-compositional. It implies that you cannot understand the meaning of the whole phrase putting the meanings of each word together. If you look at the individual words, it may not even make sense grammatically. Idiom has the meaning only as a unit.

Professor Koonin defined idiom âas a stable combination of words with a fully or partially figurative meaning.â This definition emphasizes two inherent and very important features of the idiomatic expressions.

Idioms have lexical and grammatical stability. It implies that they are fixed in their form, hence any substitutions and rearranging in their structure can lead to complete loss of their primary meaning.

Idiomatic expressions are integral units. It literally means that idioms possess indivisible completeness, so all the components are bound within one idiom.

Idioms are used in both spoken and written English, and often appear in newspaper articles. They are frequently utilized by native speakers, who feel the language at inborn genetic level.

One of the approaches to defining this linguistic phenomena stresses that an idiom is a manner of speaking that is natural to native speakers of the language. It proves that only people who are very good at speaking English can adequately and to the point use idiomatic expressions in their speech.

Though, learning idioms present a host of difficulties to English learners, primarily because they donât know the culture and history behind English idioms. Thatâs why they often use idioms incongruous with the situation. Indeed, English learners utilize idiomatic expressions very carefully, being afraid of using them incorrectly and being misunderstood. They find idioms very problematic to both understand and memorize.

Whilst, the majority of native language speakers can not always know the origin of idioms they use, though as long as they utilize them in every day communication, they know its meaning and feel where it is appropriate to use this or that idiom.

Undoubtedly, the correct usage of the English idioms is a finesse, which makes the language of the speaker more vivid and exciting."