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Thread ID: 30009 2003-02-08 07:42:00 OT (almost) Die ich rief, die Geister, rugila (214) Press F1
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119352 2003-02-08 07:42:00 Die ich rief, die Geister,
Werd ich nun nicht los.

Try Babelfish, it doesn't even come close to giving a good translation.
Anything better around?
rugila (214)
119353 2003-02-08 07:54:00 hmmm...

"The ghosts I called I can't get rid of now" - Goethe's Zauberlehrling

:D
Jen C (20)
119354 2003-02-08 08:11:00 Die ich rief, die Geister . . . . . werd' ich nun nicht los .

I'd say my boss would be better . "From the Spirits I have called . Sir, Deliver me!"

He's German so he's got to be right, right?

I could only tell you what the lyrics from Rammstein would mean since I like the band .

I used . altavista . com to translate it and also http://dictionary . reference . com/translate/text . html" target="_blank">world . altavista . com to translate it and also http: and they both came back with the same results .

Translators do their best translating but they are more than likely incorrect .
Kame (312)
119355 2003-02-08 08:12:00 I meant those translators came back with incorrect results sorry. Kame (312)
119356 2003-02-08 21:22:00 Jen C. Thanks, but you didn't get it from babelfish or an internet translator, did you?
Now, confess!
(Goethe's sorcerer's apprentice knew enough to call up his ghosts, but not enough to able to get rid of them again, hence stuck with them forever. Often enough have I had that problem in my own life. Now about translation ...)

Kame. Appreciation likewise. Good translation, whether human or computer languages or human or computer translators, requires translation of ideas and not necessarily of words. Can you find software that does this?
rugila (214)
119357 2003-02-08 21:56:00 This looked really interesting, so I looked up translation services through Copernic. You can get some great results! The most interesting one was from http://www.freetranslation.com

"That I called, the intellects, become I now not loose."

How about that then!

John
John H (8)
119358 2003-02-08 22:03:00 Hope this isn't boring, but I found another site:
www.tashian.com

Using that site, you can translate an English phrase into a wide range of languages, and then have it translated back into English to show what is "Lost in Translation". Being utterly boring by nature, I tried:

"The small brown dog jumped over the lazy fox" and these are the results:

Translated to Japanese:
小さい茶色の孤は不精な犬を飛び越した

Translated back to English:
The orphan of small brown jumped over the lazy dog


Translated to Chinese:
小褐色的孤儿跳过懒惰狗

Translated back to English:
The young brown orphan jumps the lazy dog


Translated to Korean:
젊은 갈색 고아는 게으른 개를 강하한다

Translated back to English:
Youthful brown Goa fall the lazy dog


Translated to French:
Chute brune jeune de Goa le chien paresseux

Translated back to English:
Young brown fall of Goa the lazy dog


Translated to German:
Junger brauner Fall von Goa der faule Hund

Translated back to English:
Recent brown case of Goa the lazy dog


Translated to Italian:
Cassa marrone recente di Goa il cane pigro

Translated back to English:
Case recent brown of Goa the lazy dog


Translated to Portuguese:
Encaixote o marrom recente de Goa o cão preguiçoso

Translated back to English:
The sluggish dog boxes the recent brown of Goa


Translated to Spanish:
El perro inactivo encajona el marrón reciente de Goa

Translated back to English:
The inactive dog boxes brown the recent one of Goa

Judging by those results, it is difficult to be confident about the abilities of machines to act as translators!

John
John H (8)
119359 2003-02-09 01:16:00 The sorcerer's apprentice (obviously hadn't RTFM past the page on calling) got half way there. Owen Glendower (or Glyndwr), trying to impress Hotspur, said: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep." Sceptical Hotspur: "Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?"

Translation, like all the so-called artificial intelligence applications, has one basic problem: computers aren't intelligent. Nor are people, but their approximate translations are almost always "better", because of the cultural, contextual, etc factors. A dictionary is not a translation engine.
Graham L (2)
119360 2003-02-09 03:48:00 > Jen C . Thanks, but you didn't get it from babelfish
> or an internet translator, did you?
> Now, confess!

You are very correct - I didn't use babelfish or an internet translator . . . .

As this came from a sorcerer's apprentice, I went straight to the so(u)rce ( . google . com/search?q=Die+ich+rief+die+Geister+Werd+ich+nun+nic" target="_blank">www . google . com ht+los&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&lr=lang_en&sa=X&oi=lrtip9) for my answer . ;\

Jen
Jen C (20)
119361 2003-02-09 04:28:00 >You are very correct - I didn't use babelfish or an internet translator . . . .

>As this came from a sorcerer's apprentice, I went straight to the so(u)rce for my answer .

>Jen

Very interesting . Give me an email address and I'll send you something even more interesting (mine =rugila@lycos . com) .

You're very good, so let's see how good .
Try this one:

Jede dumpfe Umkehr der Welt hat solche Enterbte,
denen das Frühere nicht und noch nicht das Nächste gehört .

Rilke's words are easy, their meaning maybe not .
rugila (214)
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