Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 August 18

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August 18

German text tranlation

Can any one translate following text in English?

Die peruanisch-chilenischen Verhandlungen waren noch im Gange. Da gab der bolivianische Sonderbevollmächtigte in Perú, Außenminister Serapio Reyes Ortiz, der den Auftrag hatte, von der peruanischen Regierung gemäß Artikel 3 des Büdnisvertrages von 1873 die Anerkennung des casus foederis zu erwirken, namens seiner Regierung dem bei der peruanischen Regierung akkreditierten diplomatischen Korps am 14. März durch Zirkularnote die vom 1. März datierte Kriegserklärung Boliviens an Chile(Fußnote 54) bekannt. Diese ungewöhnliche Schritt, eine Kriegserklärung auf diese Weise publik zu machen, erklärt sich daraus, daß zu jener Zeit nur wenige Länder in La Paz vertreten waren und die Nachrichtenübermittlung von dort wesentlich längere Zeit benötigte als von Lima aus. Mit der rechtzeitigen Bekanntgabe der Kriegserklärung aber sollten die Auslieferung von Kriegsschiffen, die bei europäischen Werften im Auftrag gegeben worden waren, und weitere Waffenlieferungen an Chile verhindert werden.

Thans in advance, --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 12:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

What about using Google Translate and polishing the result afterwards? Quest09 (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a bit too monstrous for Google Translate. Here's my fallible human translation.

"The Peruvian-Chilean negotiations were still in progress when, on his government's behalf, the Bolivian special plenipotentiary in Peru, foreign minister Serapio Reyes Ortiz, who was commissioned to obtain the Peruvian government's recognition of casus foederis according to article 3 of the 1873 treaty of alliance, announced Bolivia's declaration of war on Chile, dated March 1, by circular note to the diplomatic Corps accredited to Peru. This unusual step, to make public a declaration of war in this fashion, can be explained by the fact that only few countries were represented in La Paz at the time, and communications from there took significantly longer than from Lima. The timely announcement of the declaration of war, however, was supposed to impede the deployment of war ships that had been commissioned to European shipyards, as well as the delivery of weapons to Chile."

The first sentence is a behemoth in German too, and it probably should be split into parts. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Is it too long for Google Translate? Check this out:

The Peruvian-Chilean negotiations were still underway. That was when the Bolivian special agent in Peru, Foreign Minister Serapio Reyes Ortiz, who had been commissioned to obtain from the Peruvian government in accordance with Article 3 of the Büdnisvertrages of 1873 recognizing the casus foederis, on behalf of his government's accredited by the Peruvian government's diplomatic corps 14 . By the March circular note dated 1 Dated March declared war on Bolivia Chile (footnote 54) is known. This unusual step of making a declaration of war in this way to publicize explained by the fact that at that time represented only a few countries in La Paz and the communications were needed from there much longer time than in Lima. With the timely publication of the declaration of war but should the delivery of warships, which had been given at European shipyards in order, and to prevent further arms shipments to Chile.

do you meant the second sentence is a behemoth? Quest09 (talk) 23:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean too long, I meant too monstrous (with all the inserted subordinate clauses and what not), as your translation proves ("in accordance with Article 3 of the Büdnisvertrages of 1873 recognizing the casus foederis, on behalf of his government's accredited by the Peruvian government's diplomatic corps 14" (?). I mean the first sentence in my translation which was indeed two awkwardly punctuated sentences in the German original. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:52, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Sluzzelin did a better job than I could have translating that text into English. However, I would suggest the following text, lightly revised for clarity and idiomatic sense. I have put that long dependent clause in parentheses, since it is really a side note.

"The Peruvian-Chilean negotiations were still in progress. At that time, on his government's behalf, the Bolivian special plenipotentiary in Peru, foreign minister Serapio Reyes Ortiz announced Bolivia's declaration of war on Chile, dated March 1, by circular note to the diplomatic Corps accredited to Peru. (Reyes Ortiz had been commissioned to obtain the Peruvian government's recognition of casus foederis according to article 3 of the 1873 Treaty of Alliance.) The unusual step of making public a declaration of war in this fashion can be explained by the fact that only few countries were represented in La Paz at the time, and communications from there took significantly longer than from Lima. The timely announcement of the declaration of war, however, was meant to impede the deployment of warships that had been commissioned from European shipyards, as well as the delivery of weapons to Chile."

Marco polo (talk) 15:25, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Some remarks: Sluzzelin scores although his fine translation omits March 14 [1879] and footnote 54. Should be added. Google's automatic translation can be slightly improved if the German text is corrected firsthand (Büdnisvertrag to Bündnisvertrag, Diese to Dieser). Nevertheless Google translator fails to translate the two dates (even if 14. März and 1. März are replaced by vierzehnter März and erster März). Should be improved in the software. The editors here would easily arrive at a fine translation. The editors editing the War of the Pacific do not manage to reach an agreement on the events of March 14, 1879, see the present discussion there (caution, takes an hour to read).--Pp.paul.4 (talk) 19:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I changed in both versions

• ", dated March 1, by circular note to the diplomatic Corps accredited to Peru." to
• ", dated March 1 by circular note, to the diplomatic Corps accredited to Peru on 14. March.".

Be aware of the (changed) position of the comma. The 1. March regards the circular note of the war declaration, not the Serapio Reyes Ortiz's announcement.

If you have a good English proficiency then you are able to evaluate googles translation-mashine. In other cases to trust the google mashine is Russian roulette. --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 12:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Right?. --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 12:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Japanese: "have your cake and eat it too"

"You can't have your cake and eat it too" has always seemed a peculiar expression to me. I was therefore interested to come across the following translation into Japanese: お菓子を持っていたり同時に食べたりはできない。This is completely literal, and I wondered if would make any sense at all to a Japanese speaker (one who didn't know the English expression, or realise it was a literal translation thereof). 109.151.39.170 (talk) 19:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

It is a weird expression in English. As an exclusively English speaker it had to be translated into more idiomatic English for me before I understood it at all. I've no idea why people still use it. HiLo48 (talk) 20:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Were we to assume a linear timeframe, "you cannot eat your cake and have it" would make some sense. As it stands, it's nonsense on stilts. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, look! WHAAOE! Have one's cake and eat it too —Akrabbim^talk 20:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Good find. The Italian is much better than the English. μηδείς (talk) 21:13, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

In that article, the primary definition talks about the expression referring to "an individual owning a thing, and still attempting to benefit from or use it". I can't relate to that explanation at all. Surely the usual reason why people own things is to benefit from them or use them, isn't it? Like someone owns a car and also -- surprise -- uses it ... I don't see how that would be "having one's cake and eating it too". Any support for the present wording? 109.151.39.170 (talk) 23:54, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

No, not much support at all. I've replaced the poor phrase with "to connote the idea of consuming a thing whilst managing to preserve it", but would welcome further rewording should anyone be interested. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:05, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The phrase ought to be "You can't eat your cake and keep it too." The issue seems to be the age of the expression (16th century or older). -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:01, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

"You can't both have eaten your cake and still have it in hand." But the Italian version, "You can't have both a drunk wife and a full bottle," is better. μηδείς (talk) 01:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

You can't have your Kate

And Edith too

You rascal, you

Yodel-ay-ee-hoo -- The Statler Brothers

--Trovatore (talk) 09:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I never much cared for that expression, either. The problem is that the word "have" should be "keep". "You can't eat your cake and keep it, too" actually makes sense. For an example of where this is the case, nature preserves have the choice of excluding all visitors to protect nature, or allowing everybody in to see it, which will then lead to litter, introduction of diseases, all the animals becoming tame and begging for food, etc. Some compromise is usually in order. As far as the expression goes, you could add "...but you can eat some now and save the rest for later." StuRat (talk) 20:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

"Correcting" expressions that are hopelessly culturally embedded is a pointless exercise, Stu. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:19, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Putting aside the original en is a poor phrase, I don't think it's grammatically correct to use "...たり" in this sentence. Also "持つ" is a bad choice, I can't think of the appropriate word though. An en to ja dictionary says "食べた菓子は手に残らない" and other one says 菓子は食べたら残らない. Oda Mari (talk) 06:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Requesting meaning of Okinawan word

I am trying to translate "Tiida Iya" (ティーダ・イヤ). I know that Tiida is "Sun", but I can't find an online Okinawan-English dictionary of any sort to look up Iya. I did find a physical copy listed on amazon -- can someone who has it, or any other okinawan-english dictionary, provide a meaning for "iya"?192.249.47.196 (talk) 21:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

According to this page it translates to "Sun's protection".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

That is the translation I am trying to correct, yes.98.223.102.157 (talk) 03:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah! I managed to get a preview of that amazon book, and "ija" (how iya is pronounced) means "courage"! Problem solved.98.223.102.157 (talk) 03:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Help in getting Chinese characters

http://www.ridemetro.org/AboutUs/Board/Pdfs/Notices/Public-Hearing-Sept08.pdf

In this document I can't copy the Chinese characters of the document title in Chinese. Would anyone mind posting the characters on here? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 22:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

"公众听证会公告"--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:24, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! WhisperToMe (talk) 03:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

For future reference: you may want to consider installing the proper fonts for Adobe Acrobat (or whatever else you're using to view PDFs) on your computer, or just updating Acrobat. On my machine I'm able to select and copy this text.

Also, there are some online dictionaries, such as http://nciku.com, where you can write Chinese characters using your mouse and "get" them that way. Of course it's a bit tedious, especially for longer chunks of text, but at least it's doable even by people who don't know Chinese (although it might not do as well if you don't write characters with correct stroke order). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:33, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't Chinese IME for Windows have an IME pad? I don't know because I'm on a different PC at the mo. You could just do it there? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Hm, I'm not sure, one of them might...currently I'm just using the QQ IME and the Microsoft pinyin 3.0 IME (and I've used the Google IME as well), and as far as I remember none of them have it (or maybe they have one somewhere and I just never opened it). rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:44, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

It technically means: The Institute of Public Hearing's Public Notice. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 15:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

No it doesn't. It means "Public Notice of a Public Hearing". "Institute" is not mentioned anywhere, and it is not necessary to preserve foreign word order to make something a "technical" meaning. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)