Chinese "rap"

A discussion of the peculiarities of languages and the differences between them.
anders
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Re: Chinese "rap"

Postby anders » Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:30 pm

«同志», during the last century used as the egalitarian term of address «Comrade», but which now seems to have taken on a rather different - or let us say, more restricted - meaning
'Restricted' ain't quite what lotsa people think they are...

Anders

Feeling gay, in the more ancient meaning
Irren ist männlich

M. Henri Day
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Re: Chinese "rap"

Postby M. Henri Day » Sun Nov 27, 2005 4:14 pm

Feeling gay, in the more ancient meaning
I recall anecdotes, dating from three and one half decades ago when I was studying transformational grammar at the Uni, concerning a researcher who, not always terribly cognizant of English idiom - if I remember correctly, she was Czech - used to investigate the underlying grammar of variants of sentences like «All the people on the moon are gay.» She was said to be a great talent, very skilled in teasing out underlying structures, but never could quite understand the levity to which her examples invariably gave rise in the lecture room. (Remember that we're talking here about the late 60s/early 70s !)

Good to see, at any rate, that Anders is in a happy mood (for so I interpret his disclosure) and back on the Agora ! His contributions have been missed !...

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Sun Nov 27, 2005 6:28 pm

...

(Oh, that post window gets kinda ugly with all them thar chicken-scratches in them. :lol: )
. . .

Henri
Actually, what I was referring to is the 'Post a reply' window. When you do a refresh, all the Chinese gets re-written as escaped HTML, which I reproduce here by putting a space between the & and the #:
& #12356; & #12420; & #12289; & #20854; & #12398; & #20107; & #12399; & #12354; & #12426; & #12414; . . .
Try looking at a windowfull of that sometime!
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Sun Nov 27, 2005 6:48 pm

...
& #12356; & #12420; & #12289; & #20854; & #12398; & #20107; & #12399; & #12354; & #12426; & #12414; . . .
Try looking at a windowfull of that sometime!
Have to admit, Larry, that that particular pleasure could rapidly pale ! I am therefore most grateful that the Agora's code turns the «chicken scratches» of the Table de caractères Unicode into quite legible graphs, allowing both Flam (I hope !) and your humble interlocutor to sleep the sleep alleged to be vouchsafed those of good conscience...

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Nov 28, 2005 12:19 am

...
& #12356; & #12420; & #12289; & #20854; & #12398; & #20107; & #12399; & #12354; & #12426; & #12414; . . .
Try looking at a windowfull of that sometime!
Have to admit, Larry, that that particular pleasure could rapidly pale ! . . .
Henri

Well, your signature comes out OK in the initial copying to the Post a reply window, but hitting the Preview button returns it in the "&$.....;" gobbledygook.

Finally, clicking the Submit button posts it in the inscrutable original:
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

M. Henri Day
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Posts: 1141
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:24 am
Location: Stockholm, SVERIGE

Postby M. Henri Day » Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:13 am

...
Finally, clicking the Submit button posts it in the inscrutable original:
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
And I who had dared to hope that I had succeeded in making my signature a bit more scrutable on this thread !It just goes to show....

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:05 pm

...
Finally, clicking the Submit button posts it in the inscrutable original:
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
And I who had dared to hope that I had succeeded in making my signature a bit more scrutable on this thread !It just goes to show....

Henri
I hadn't seen that one before.
Do you yet remember the oath we swore, when in midstream the waves checked our flying boat ?
Systran makes it out to be:
Once recorded otherwise, struck the water to the average, the wave stopped flies the boat?
I'd rate them as close but no cigar. Maybe a bit of pipe tobacco as a consolation prize.

Taking your translation, Systran give us:
您记住我们发誓的誓言, 当在中途波浪检查了我们的飞行小船?
which even to me looks a bit different than your:
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
And just for grins, performing a loopback by feeding Systran's Chinese back to itself:
You remember the pledge which we pledged, when has inspected our flight boat in the midway wave?
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

M. Henri Day
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Posts: 1141
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:24 am
Location: Stockholm, SVERIGE

Postby M. Henri Day » Sun Dec 04, 2005 11:51 am

If I don't misremember, many years ago, long before this pastime became every-man's plaything, somebody - I think the US military - set up a machine which translated untouched by human hands (save for those of the girls who punched the punch cards). To demonstrate how well it worked, an English version of Matthaeus 26:41 («spiritus quidem promptus est caro autem infirma») was translated into Russian, and then back into English, with, it is claimed, the following result :
The liquor's good, but the meat's lousy.
So can it go....

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

Stargzer
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 2578
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:56 pm
Location: Crownsville, MD

Postby Stargzer » Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:44 pm

If I don't misremember, many years ago, long before this pastime became every-man's plaything, somebody - I think the US military - set up a machine which translated untouched by human hands (save for those of the girls who punched the punch cards). To demonstrate how well it worked, an English version of Matthaeus 26:41 («spiritus quidem promptus est caro autem infirma») was translated into Russian, and then back into English, with, it is claimed, the following result :
The liquor's good, but the meat's lousy.
So can it go....

Henri
From what I hear, that was true of Soviet comestibles . . . when you could get them! :lol:
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

john1956_u

Business help in China

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Perry
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Postby Perry » Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:27 am

If I don't misremember, many years ago, long before this pastime became every-man's plaything, somebody - I think the US military - set up a machine which translated untouched by human hands (save for those of the girls who punched the punch cards). To demonstrate how well it worked, an English version of Matthaeus 26:41 («spiritus quidem promptus est caro autem infirma») was translated into Russian, and then back into English, with, it is claimed, the following result :
The liquor's good, but the meat's lousy.
So can it go....

Henri
Why are you treating this with such levity. If the devil can quote scriptures to his own purpose, why can't a machine ask for better feeding?

(Anyone remember the scene in I Robot where one of the robots trying to kill Will Smith during a high-speed chase declares, "You are experiencing an accident"?)
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous

anders
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Location: Sweden

Postby anders » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:13 pm

No to mention that I distinctly remember having seen in an article on machine translation and/or computational linguistics that the liquor/meat example is just an urban legend.

Anyone who has tried the stuff will realize that machinery never will be able to match us professional translators.
Irren ist männlich

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:34 pm

. . . (Anyone remember the scene in I Robot where one of the robots trying to kill Will Smith during a high-speed chase declares, "You are experiencing an accident"?)
Now that you mention it, yes.

And going back over this translation territory reminds me of the psychic researcher who tried to capture a photograph of a ghost. His picture was severely underexposed; the spirit was willing but the flash was weak.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Perry
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Posts: 2306
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:50 am
Location: Asheville, NC

Postby Perry » Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:59 am

Wonderful pun Stargazer!

Even more fun than machine translations are children's Mondgreens. An example from yesterday. My pre-schooler explained to me that Pharoh told Mose and the children of Israel, "You will be Spanish if you don't bow down to me".

Also when Finding Nemo was still relatively new, making her around 3 at the time, she used to declare that, "this one fish in the lotion is a bad guy".
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous


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