Article about Khaldor in German newspaper - Page 3

On April 29 2012 02:39 Terrakin wrote:
great article, I can remember all the memories now of watching Khaldor on stream



hope for many more years with his casting

On April 29 2012 02:39 Terrakin wrote:
great article, I can remember all the memories now of watching Khaldor on stream

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_daA6glBYQ

hope for many more years with his casting

was that also published in the printed edition? Or is it an online-only article?

On April 29 2012 02:34 Proseat wrote:


Well, it's not that easy. The German language has quite a few pecularities that will easily throw off a machine translation, especially when sentences are ambiguous in many ways.

Take for example the simple sentence "Paul liebt Anna." In German -- like in English -- the prefered word order is Subject- Verb-Object (SVO) which puts the translation as "Paul loves Anna." However, as the SVO word order is only prefered but not strict, sentences may deviate and go with a less common OVS word order. So the given example then would translate as "Anna loves Paul." (or more literally: "Paul is whom Anna loves.") This secondary word order is usually chosen when emphasis needs to be put or if a question like "Wen liebt Anna?" ("Who does Anna love?", "Anna loves whom?") is answered.

Another thing that usually confuses machine translation is subordinate clauses which in German take the S(O)V word order, i.e. "Er ist nicht ins Kino gegangen, da es gestern regnete." has the verb move all the way to the end of the sentence translating as "He did not go to the movies, because it rained yesterday." The main and subordinate clauses could also -- like in English -- be switched so it becomes "Da es gestern regnete, ist er nicht ins Kino gegangen." and translates as "Because it rained yesterday, he did not go to the movies."

And then you have -- like in English -- word ambiguities which will throw off machine translations. A sentence like "Der Jaguar ist schnell." could mean "The jaguar is fast." (the animal) or "The Jaguar is fast." (the car). In this example English is better off than German because it will only capitalize a brand name, not every noun as is the rule in the German language. Another example for cross-language word ambiguity is "Die Isolation schlug fehl." which could either translate as "The isolation failed." (exclusion, displacement) or "The insulation failed." (electrical shielding).

So while some of the things you mentioned certainly help a German to English machine translation, there are still several pitfalls, which makes it largely dependent on the structure of the original text and luck.

For some of the inherent pecularities of German in a comedic relief setting, I recommend reading The Awful German Language by Mark Twain. Also, there is this short and sweet list of common German beginner mistakes.

Kuhlshrank, or "cool cabinet"

On April 29 2012 21:27 zachMEISTER wrote:

[...]

Unless it's a dependent claused tacked on the end of another clause:
"Ich esse Abendessen, weil habe hunger ich." ---- "I eat dinner becuase have hunger I" obviously this is a very elementary sentence, but the point is taken.
past-tense? "Ich habe Abendessen gegessen, weil habe hunger ich." ---- "I ate dinner because I am hungery."
future-tense? "Ich werde Abendessen essen, wiel habe hunger ich." ---- "I will eat dinner because I'm hungry

They're all basically the same sentence, and you can see where the grammatical shift occurs. While keeping the exact same structure. That's what always confused me with other languages. Thoughts like "holy shit, this verb idea is great! why don't all languages employ this?" or something like "Wow, I love how these words translate to exactly what their idea of it is." Kinda like refrigerator, JUST FUCKING HILARIOUS and INTUITIVE.

[...]

On April 29 2012 20:31 IBringUFire wrote:
mastafa,

was that also published in the printed edition? Or is it an online-only article?

On April 30 2012 03:00 baudusau wrote:

it was published in the printed edition on thursday.