User talk:Guido/Project257/Part 1

I'll use "talk" pages whenever I think a fix is non-trivial enough.

geyser 22:56, 31 January 2007 (CET)

Iterated

Small

As opposed to "little", "small" carries nothing but the notion of size.

No reference to young age, and as good as no affective connotation (AFAIK).

"Little girl" is almost an idiom... What's wrong with it, Guido? ^^

geyser 22:56, 31 January 2007 (CET)

Not quite proper

Words I'm not sure are proper (or at least words I'd never have used in directions myself)

• sulky
• impish

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Reiterated

Furrow one's brow

I checked my reference dictionaries (both printed and online). Actually the expression "to furrow one's brow" does exist... just google " she furrows her brow" and see... ^^

Guido

Acknowledged. I was nowhere near determined enough the first time. Biased, too ^^

geyser

Resignation

WTF?

geyser

maybe surrender? The concept is about Emily shaking her head as she thinks: "there's nothing I can do in order to convince Carmen. Carmen is no reasonable at all. I will handle this my way, I just need to ask Bill..."

Guido

One thing about this one and so many others. English is famous for how a word such as "set" can have 200+ very different meanings depending on the context. Surely you don't want to use such a word without a phrasal context, even if it's not 200 but 5.

Practically, for someone who hasn't read the verbose original, the "adapted" dialogue is not unambiguous enough for "in resignation" to make immediate, unmistakeable sense.

What I really recommend in such cases is not to try and pick "the right word". Either provide the German one and/or a bunch of possible translations and/or disambiguate with a little sentence (or two).

An example: your explanatory sentence (Emily's thoughts) was very helpful to me. So you might consider adding that information somehow into the script (either as V.O. or possibly verbose "directions to actors"). Otherwise, you're the only one who knows what's going on. All the others will be left with their (wrong) guesses.

Sorry for ranting.

geyser 19:00, 8 February 2007 (CET)

Leader circuit

Wherever you got that one from?

geyser

LEO: online German- English dictionary, huge forum, very useful to find out all technical terms (another word for example is spring-gun, in chapter 3, and ventilation-shaft)

Guido

Huh? When I look up "Leiterbahn" (integrierte Schaltkreise) with LEO, I get these 8 hits:

• conductor [elec.]
• track [tech.]
• circuit path [tech.]
• conductor path [tech.]
• printed circuit board track [abbr.: pcb track] ----->
• strip conductor [tech.]
• strip line [tech.]
• trace pitch [elec.]

From that list, it's nearly obvious that "(PCB) track" is the best candidate. And "leader circuit" is nowhere to see.

(actually, "traces" is what the say it's called HERE

And when I look up "leader circuit" with LEO, I only get separate hits for the two words, i.e., not an expression.

So I feel like asking you again: how does one get "leader circuit" out of LEO (or any German-English dictionary)?

geyser

Uhm... "Leader" is just the result of a series of overlookings and mistakes in order: two different hits on LEO (leit/er and leiterbahn), then as I re-read I mistook the word "leader" as "leaded". circuit(al) paths is the most convenient translation where we describe Carmen's skin (Carmen's texture = Cortana's, as you said) (and according to my brother, who is electronic engineer as well as researcher)

guido 19:40, 8 February 2007 (CET)

If your idea of translating compound words is translating word parts separately and put the English words together... I'm afraid that won't yield good results for "technical terms".

geyser

Actually it is not possible to get composite words on LEO. And if you know me, you know I would not dare to translate composite words by simply mixing the results of separate hits (well... maybe I cannot resist my curiosity^^). I am not sure whether or not Babylon accepts composed queries, but sometimes the automatic translator at freetranslation.com deserves nice surprises. By the way, LEO often links to an online grammar dictionary, CANOO, where composite words are illustrated through useful diagrams.

guido 19:40, 8 February 2007 (CET)

Ventilation shaft

That one is OK (no hyphen though).

Spring-gun

Spring-guns are typically used by hunters/braconniers and slightly mad home owners. Not too fit.

Problem is: German doesn't distinguish between those and the (semi fictional) paramilitary ones; English does.

In such cases, I have to improvise. Since the guns we need are mostly fictional, sci-fi references are the key.

Take The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, for instance... I read it a long while ago.

There was likewise a shaft secured by automatic guns firing tranquilizer darts. What were they called?

And Oni calls them "turrets" (Geschütttürme in German). Googling for "crichton+andromeda+turret" gives you:

Sentry gun. Already better.

"Determination to peresevere like a badger", right on!

Otherwise it's not "much better" than literal translation. ^^

geyser 19:00, 8 February 2007 (CET)

I am also considering "stationary guns" or "stationary defenses",

guido 19:30, 8 February 2007 (CET)

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Durchsetzungsvermögen

• wikipedia:Assertiveness is a communication skill. Something you teach to trainees and students so that they don't suck so bad.
• Perseverance and determination are already closer. As seen HERE:

Murray calls it the German quality of Durchsetzungsvermögen, the determination to persevere like a badger and win the hundreds of one-on-one battles that occur in a game.

• I decided against the (redundant) "determination to persevere" (like a badger ^^). "Perseverance" is OK.

geyser 22:56, 31 January 2007 (CET)

Acknowledged!

Guido