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L-R and parallel texts | ||
Tags: Listening-Reading (L-R) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6449 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 17 of 34 11 February 2008 at 6:22am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
How is that not correct? The Italian more literally translates to "Because I by myself with a live beetle will not sleep, (punto e basta)". This obviously isn't reasonable English -- transforming it appropriately, it becomes something like "Because I (absolutely) will not sleep with a live beetle!" I admit that there's no concept of 'bobbing', but it probably fits the tone of the original; that's the only very questionable part that I see, but it's still fairly minor. "No way!" is a good translation of "punto e basta" -- it's something which needs to be translated as a phrase, not word for word. The word order is different; that is because one is in idiomatic Italian, and one is in idiomatic (and fairly colorful) English. It looks to me like the problem is that it's a fairly literary translation. "Tradurre e tradire" is unfortunately a fact of life -- to translate is to betray. You can usually pick at most one of a very close translation, and a 'beautiful' one. Literary translations tend to err towards the latter. If you clarify how you consider the translation to be wrong, it might be possible to be more helpful; as it is, I can just give you glittering generalities. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Vance Newbie United States Joined 6155 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 34 11 February 2008 at 8:11am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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No, you are right translation is not wrong. But how can a beginner like me recognize these types of phrases? I am putting all the sentences onto flash cards. Is there any kind of books or something that can help me? Phrases like this is what is slowing me down with Spanish and Italian.
- Vance 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6449 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 19 of 34 11 February 2008 at 10:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It seems that you can already recognize these sentences, to some degree - they're the ones that will really confuse you at first. You'll need to deal with them eventually - they're an integral part of the language. Textbooks and other material aimed at learners usually stick to simple sentences and literal translations. If you want to go the sentence-mining route, that may be one way to do it. Another is to simply ignore any sentences that are currently too strange/complex; as you learn more, your threshold will change, and sentences like the one you quoted before aren't going away, so you'll have no trouble finding more when you feel more prepared to deal with them. "i+1" input is probably the most valuable - that is, things -slightly- beyond your current level, with one new word or construct, not things which are still entirely baffling. For what it's worth, the AJATT guy advocates sticking to i+1 sentences (I assume he's the (perhaps indirect) source of your attempted method). Seeing examples of sentences in English and Italian will help you get used to these differences. I don't know what the most effective way to do this is (textbooks/language courses, literature/other parallel texts, etc), merely that at some point, if you want to be fluent in Italian, you'll need to bridge the gap between English and Italian word orders and phrasings (the good side: it starts to feel extremely natural after a while). A second bonus is that, once you've gotten your head around this concept in one language, it's insanely easier in other ones. Literature is extremely useful, but in more limited contexts. It's great for intermediate+ learners of a specific language, or people who have more experience with language learning and enjoy parallel texts. I don't know how it is for people who are still on an early level of a first foreign language; I entirely lack data on this. I can rant all day about absorbing sentence structures and awareness of a few key points (sentence structure, use of articles, phrasings, idioms, and words do -not- have a one to one correspondence), but I don't know if or how much this helps, and I don't have answers on how to gain an intuitive appreciation for this, other than knowledge that there are such differences, and exposure to comprehensible examples. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6867 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 20 of 34 11 February 2008 at 11:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't know what the "answer" is, but what I would do is find out what all the words mean in Italian. TheEnglish "equivalent" is a translation of the "meaning" of that whole sentence. I don't know Italian at all, but maybe you don't start sentences with the equivalent of "no way." Maybe that's anEnglish-language characteristic. (It also seems more American to me, but then again, who says "bobbing about"?) What was the original language, by the way? I'm curious. I think that's what poses the extra challenge. When dealing with literature, you're not going to find too many word-for-word translations. You have to suffice with the meanings. That's my issue with parallel texts: they're not parallel. So I think if you're going to use this method, you have to slow down a bit, and change expectations. I'm about to try it. I think it's going to be extra hard, but maybe worth it in the end. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Vance Newbie United States Joined 6155 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 34 11 February 2008 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's Italian I think. So basically, If a sentence in Italian doesn't make any sense inEnglish, but theEnglish translation given by the book (or whatever) is an acceptable translation, but doesn't compare anywhere near to the words in the Italian sentence, that's ok? And I have to just learn them by heart, and individually? - Vance 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6449 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 34 11 February 2008 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
"perché io da sola con uno scarafaggio vivo non ci dormo, punto e basta" Word-for-word: Because I by myself(female) with a beetle live not here I-sleep, point/period/end-of-sentence and stop.
I'm a little surprised, that as a fluent speaker of Spanish, you weren't sure that it was Italian. They're such similar languages!
Literary parallel texts are parallel; they're usually just not word-for-word, or even hyperliteral-but-correct. What language(s) are you planning to try with, out of curiosity? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kewms Senior Member United States Joined 6197 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 23 of 34 11 February 2008 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
English and Italian represent different cultures, and as such will have different assumptions, different shared information, and different idiomatic expressions. The idea is not to memorize Italian expressions and theirEnglish equivalents, but to learn to think in Italian in the first place. You learn to do that, in part, by repeated exposure to lots of idiomatic Italian. Katherine Edited by kewms on 11 February 2008 at 1:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6449 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 24 of 34 11 February 2008 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, it's Italian.
Yes. It's absolutely fine, to be expected, and there's no way to avoid it for a significant percentage of sentences.
I wouldn't, but you can choose to try to do so. A sentence which is very difficult now will become much easier as you learn various parts. For instance, I think 'punto e basta' is worth knowing by itself - it's not all that rare of a phrase, and there is no way to break it down; it's purely idiomatic. As for the rest of it - it's fairly straightforward, typical Italian that just happens to be fairly far from English, relative to most Italian phrases. I think you could profitably learn pieces of it and/or the grammatical rules behind parts of it, rather than learning the whole sentence at this point, because it's clearly not "i+1" right now. I used to want to learn -everything- in Italian right away, and set off making word-lists with the first novel I tried to read in it. My grandmother, a former language teacher, was older and wiser, and told me to cut it out, as the book was full of all sorts of nautical terms that I frankly don't know even in English. There are times for direct study of very specific things, and there are times when it makes sense to not focus too much on complicated frills at the beginning. Acknowledge they exist, write them down in a 'for later' pile if it makes you happy, and go on your merry way. My 0.02$. Edited by administrator on 11 February 2008 at 3:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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