PaRtZ Posted June 18, 2008 Report Share Posted June 18, 2008 No, Partz's dictionary fails. PaRtZ's dictionary is one of the best online german ones, as its created using real life german and real life english speaking people German has the ability, where a literal translation is usually wrong. For example, Wie lauft es (may need umlauts in there) means, hows it going, but literally translated means, how does it run? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Revolver Posted June 19, 2008 Report Share Posted June 19, 2008 PaRtZ's dictionary is one of the best online german ones, as its created using real life german and real life english speaking people German has the ability, where a literal translation is usually wrong. For example, Wie lauft es (may need umlauts in there) means, hows it going, but literally translated means, how does it run? If that's the case, krisboats fails Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krisboats Posted June 19, 2008 Report Share Posted June 19, 2008 If that's the case, krisboats fails Not really, unlike partz's example they've replaced every actual word with a different one that creates a sentence of a similar nature. As with most languages there's room for error, Latin especially. But in this example, gay as a lark would be an English phrase... where as the German equivalent is not intended as that. Its someone's interpretation of an entire sentence within context instead of an accurate representation. If you intended to say gay as a lark in German then you'd say "Schwul als eine Lerche". The fact is somewhere along the line someone's mis-interpreted the meaning during the translation and replaced one type of bird with another, a lark is clearly not a swallow yet someone's found a similar sentence and given it a pre-defined context. I studied German for a while... i'm not entirely clueless I know how you have to listen to a sentence as a whole before translating it especially with past-tense structures but this isn't even close. Its closer to the case of the name kangaroo. Someone supposedly asked a local what the creature was and he said kangaroo, which means "i don't know"... having mis-understood it it was documented with that name and now its called an i don't know. This isn't actually true, its a myth and kangaroo doesn't mean i don't know... but its the same context, and that's my point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diz Posted June 19, 2008 Report Share Posted June 19, 2008 Lol! P.s. i think dictionary is pronounced dee-ca-tee-on-ary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted June 19, 2008 Report Share Posted June 19, 2008 shh-wobble this is how us brits should say it i say! vote shh-wobble and get a free kit bag.! inc pussle map and crayons! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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