- From: Christophe Strobbe <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be>
- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:34:21 +0200
- To: w3c-translators@w3.org
- Cc: www-international@w3.org
Hi,
At 16:56 8/06/2007, CE Whitehead wrote:
>Systrans is getting more like Google neither
>does impersonal pronouns properly!
>
>* * *
>
>Example 1:
>
>Original (French) text:
>
>"Il va pleuvoir le dimanche, n'est pas? A-t-il
>quelque chose que je peux faire?"
>
>Systrans:
>
>"It will rain Sunday, is not? Does it have something which I can do?"
>
>Google:
>
>"It will rain Sunday, is not? Does it have something which I can do?"
>
>(I would translate the sentence as:
>
>"It's going to rain Sunday, right? Is there anything I can do?")
As far as I know, your translation of the second
sentence would have been correct if the French
original had been "Y a-t-il ...".
"a-t-il" can mean "does he/it have..."
>(...)
>* * *
>Example 2-3
>
>Original Text:
>
>"S'il est impossible que quelque chose se passe,
>a-t-il des cas oł il est possible qu'elle se passe?"
>
>(...)
>Translating French > English (google and Systrans again the same!)
>
>"If it is impossible that something occurs, does
>it have cases where it is possible that it occurs?"
>
>
>(I'd translate the above, French > English, as
>"If it is impossible that something will happen,
>are there cases where it is possible that it
>will happen" but it's my French I'm translating
>so the original may not sound perfectly native but I think it's o.k.)
Same problem with "a-t-il" as above, AFAIK.
Moreover, I can't make sense of "des cas oł il
est possible qu'elle se passe". What is "elle"
("she") supposed to refer to? I doubt that you
can refer back to "quelque chose" by means of
"elle" in the second clause, and that you can use
"elle" with "se passer" if that verb is used in the sense of "to happen".
So who is "doing" pronouns improperly?
Best regards,
Christophe
--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/
Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
Received on Friday, 8 June 2007 15:34:30 UTC