Colchicums...and Blog translations !

[Jim McKenney]

This is off topic, and I apologize to those who are expecting something about colchicums. It is directed particularly to those members of this forum who are fluent in German.

I hope one of you will have the time to try this: Try searching on the words “my virtual Maryland garden”, translate the site, take a look and let me know what you think.

I saw this today for the first time. There were some obvious problems of words which did not translate, but from what I could see overall it seemed to make sense. But I have no sense of contemporary, stylistic, literary German, and translation can be a very tricky undertaking. 

So, I know we have several German-speaking members of this forum. I hope some of you can find the time to take a look at the German-language version of my blog and let us know something about the quality of the automatic translation. Remember, I had nothing to do with it: you won’t hurt my feelings if you think it is crude, ridiculous, nonsensical or whatever.

But I’m curious to know what a born speaker of German makes of it.

[Maggi Young]

Jim, I'm having a little difficulty in understanding what you are saying here in English 


Can't find anything on your site that looks German.... post a link perhaps ?

[Jim McKenney]

Jim, I'm having a little difficulty in understanding what you are saying here in English 


Can't find anything on your site that looks German.... post a link perhaps ?

Maggi, my blog is in English.

If one routinely does  Google searches and confines the results to one's own language (in our case, English), what I'm talking about might not be apparent.

But if one does Google searches and accepts results in languages in addition to one's usual language, the resulting hits generally offer an automatic translation option so that one can read material posted in other languages.

The translations are "automatic translations" - rough and approximate, sometimes good enough to get the idea, sometimes unintelligible.

Someone in Germany recently did a Google search on the name of a plant illustrated on my blog. Curious, I followed the link to the German Google page which displayed the German search result. It was there that I noticed the option to translate my blog; I took that option and was surprised to find my entire blog translated into German.

Here a link you can cut and paste it into your browser:

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&rlz=1T4GGLR_deDE223DE223&q=tricyrtis+macrantha&start=0&sa=N

On that page you will see a link to my blog. Click on Diese Seite übersetzen (translate this site) and you should be taken to my blog translated into German.

Let me know if it works for you.

[Maggi Young]

AHA! Now I'm with you!  Right, off I go to have a look 

[Maggi Young]

Okay, here are two excerpts from Jim's blog, the first in English and the second in German:
I am pleasantly surprised at the translation, ot seems pretty good to me, but our native German speakers will be able to give a better opinion, I am sure..


The genus Tricyrtis provides a number of interesting late summer-, early fall-blooming herbaceous perennials with, as a rule, upward-facing, star-shaped spotted flowers. As with so many plants touted for shade tolerance, they actually do even better with plenty of sun. As a group they are called toad lilies.

The one shown here, Tricyrtis macrantha, is so different from the others that you might not realize what it is the first time you see it. The flowers remind me of those of some fritillaries or of those of Kirengeshoma palmata. If you tilt them up a bit, you will be able to see the profuse red spots on the inside - again, much in the style of some fritillaries.

Not only is it beautiful and unusual, it is also easily grown.


Die Gattung Tricyrtis bietet eine Reihe von interessanten späten Sommer-, Herbst-früh blühende Stauden mit Stauden, wie eine Regel, nach oben gerichtete, star-shaped gefleckten Blumen.  Wie bei so vielen Pflanzen touted für Schatten Toleranz, die sie eigentlich noch besser mit viel Sonne.  Wie eine Gruppe nennt man sie Kröte Lilien.

 Die hier gezeigten ein, Tricyrtis macrantha, ist so verschieden von den anderen, dass Sie möglicherweise nicht erkennen, was es ist das erste Mal, sehen Sie es.  Die Blüten erinnern mich an die von einigen fritillaries oder von denen der Kirengeshoma palmata.  Wenn Sie neigen sie ein bisschen, haben Sie die Möglichkeit, um zu sehen, die profuse roten Flecken auf der Innenseite - wieder viel in den Stil einiger fritillaries.

 Es ist nicht nur schön und ungewöhnlich, es ist auch leicht gewachsen.

[Lvandelft]

I studied this automatic translation for a while and think a computer will never be able
to give a sufficient translation.
First the word 'touted' : There is no translation for it in Dutch in a normal dictionary and probably
not in German too?
I presume that here is meant 'known'

Then the word 'tilt' is translated with bend or bow, which I think means the opposite of tilt.

Further the sentence construction in English is very often just the other way around comparing
with German or Dutch.

I often have to translate letters for my wife from German or Dutch to English, which makes no difference to me. Of course I always have a dictionary at hand for some words!
In that case I read the letter first carefully, to see what she wants to write and then make
just an English letter of my own, trying to think in English.
And "thinking"is just the thing a computer (still) can't do 

[Lvandelft]

This morning I thought that the best way to show what I meant with my previous posting, would be to make a translation myself, which is readable for German speaking people.
I am sure there are some German Forumists who could do the same!

I received a PM  from Gerd about the word 'toat-ed', and his computer translated it into :
'rekrutieren'. Something like that I found in my English-Dutch dictionary too, but is totally misplaced here.
So I think I use the word 'geeignet' (usefull or used for such a place).

Here follows my translation:

Die Gattung Tricyrtis bietet eine Reihe von interessant blühenden Stauden für den Späten Sommer oder frühen Herbst, mit in der Regel aufwärts gerichteten sternförmigen, gefleckten Blüten.
Wie bei vielen für den Halbschatten geeigneten Stauden, wachsen sie aber an sonnigen Orten fast noch besser.
Sie werden auch wohl Kröten-Lilien genannt.

Die hier gezeigte Sorte Tricyrtis macrantha unterscheidet sich  aber so, das man sie fast nicht erkennt, wenn man sie das erste Mal sieht.
Die Blüten erinnern mich an manche Fritillarien oder an die von Kirengeshoma palmata. Wenn man sie ein wenig hebt, kann man auf der Inneseite die reichlich vorhandenen roten Flecken sehen – schon wieder ähnlich wie bei mancher Fritillarie.

Nicht nur wunderschön und ungewöhnlich, sondern auch leicht zu kultivieren.

I hope you understand now, that it is almost impossible to translate "word after word".

To make it easier here is the english version again:

The genus Tricyrtis provides a number of interesting late summer-, early fall-blooming herbaceous perennials with, as a rule, upward-facing, star-shaped spotted flowers. As with so many plants touted for shade tolerance, they actually do even better with plenty of sun. As a group they are called toad lilies.

The one shown here, Tricyrtis macrantha, is so different from the others that you might not realize what it is the first time you see it. The flowers remind me of those of some fritillaries or of those of Kirengeshoma palmata. If you tilt them up a bit, you will be able to see the profuse red spots on the inside - again, much in the style of some fritillaries.

Not only is it beautiful and unusual, it is also easily grown.

[Susan Band]

Just to clarify the word 'tout' used in this way. It means promoted, as in selling. It could be used as 'touting for business' - standing at a restaurant door trying to get customers in.
Tilt used in this way means angle, so bend is nearly right. It also means speed as in full tilt - full speed.
Susan

[Joakim B]

I have seen the translation and if people can accept the wrong order of words they would probably understand what is said. I unfortunally do the same mistake in my German having nordic grammar (same as the English (is there a clue?)) when speaking in German and mostly I am understood even though it is not always the case. With some practice in " automatically translated German" one gets most of it even if some things are lost in translation. Combining with pictures and reading in a topic one knows make it easier.

I have read Japanese automatically translated pages about hepatica and cypripedium and I have understood a lot of it. At least enough to follow the pictures and get the general idea.

The translation so far is doing word for word but I think they will soon be doing sentence for sentence and by that get better grammar.
Having a correct version in the second language is often better but more time-consuming. Then what language will that be? English is often a possibility but if it is written in English what language then? With automatically translated pages there will be more languages available.
It is far from perfect but a good help even if i is far from a human translation.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
Kind regards
Joakim

[Lvandelft]

Thanks Susan, in that case I should have used the German words 'empfohlen als'.

And the word 'tilt' is given as cant or overturn in my dict., so I think I made the best of it??

The problem is that there are often many possibilities for a word.

[gote]

As I understand it, the word 'touted' is slang for "advertised for sale with little substance" Few translating machines can translate slang and idioms.
To translate the way Lvandelft does is really the best way.
Some time ago I tried a translating program that could handle English, French, German, Spanish and Portugese. The one that did not work well  was to and from German.
The reason is some of the German peculiarities.
A: Often the word order is "backwards" 'If you German speak, will you understand' = If Thou know German Thou will understand.
B: A truck is a Lastkraftwagen = load power carriage. This word is too long so it is always written LKW. Because of the length of the words German is often contracted.
C: German is more inflected than many other languages so more menaing is hidden in the form of the word and that decodes the contractions.
I wonder if our native German-speaking friends will recognize. This is the way it looks from the Swedish point of view.
Schönes Wochenede noch
Göte

  

[Gerdk]

About the difficulties of the German language - wait a little bit, in the past we spoke
Deutsch (German) - today we speak Denglisch - a mixture of 'Deutsch' and English
 - in the future we'll speak English   
If you don't believe me, watch advertising in German newspapers or tv!

Gerd

[Joakim B]

Gerd You are still far from how much English it is in Sweden. Even Swedish products in Swedish channels are promoted in English.
You will never loose German or, as a country, be great in English (only good) as long as there is TV with John Wayne saying "Hände hoch" instead of the original "Hands up!" and not much of original English or American slang on TV.
PS this is not to critize any forum member but a general opinion of the state of English in Germany and other countries that do not use subtitles.
Kind regards
Joakim

[Hagen Engelmann]

Luit, kannst Du das Ganze noch mal in Deutsch? Nur einmal, so daß ich`s auch verstehe?
Would like to corespondence with Jim

[Lvandelft]

Would like to corespondence with Jim

Hagen, I would wait with corresponding to Jim.
He is probably still trying to get his translation machine on order.