Quote:
Originally posted by Grendal:
I notice that there are folk from all over the world on this board....does everyone speak english on here or you using some sort o "translation" program?
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All joking aside (read Ramon x 3 [img]smile.gif[/img] ), translation programs just cannot do what the human brain can do. Language is a very high-level founctin of the human brain. In fact, it is one of the critical things that sets us apart from animals.
The subtleties of language are very complex. Take idioms for example, many common expressions are idiomatic in a language and a word for word translation makes no sense. Also, slang does not always translate.
Computer tranlation programs may be useful for looking up a word you but they are a long way from being able to give an acurate translation.
One of the first jobs I had out of college was being the translator of French and German for a company. I NEVER got the point across to them that a translation is not a transliteration. I would translate something and tell them what it said in English. They would count up the words in the French or German and the number of words in my translation and want to know why my translation had more or fewer words than the original. I explained it to them repeatedly, but to no avail. Of course these were the same people that sent form letters in German to Australia and when I pointed out that they spoke German in Austria, they said "but aren't Austria and Australia the same thing?"
I quit after about a year after beating my head repeatedly up against a brick wall. [img]smile.gif[/img]
[ 07-01-2003, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: Reeka ]