From: Ed (ed.trager@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2011 - 22:46:54 CST
John's comments made me instantly think of this very funny video where
an English interviewer asks members of the German band Tokio Hotel for
a few translations of very simple sentences ...
Probably off-topic for this list --you've been forewarned!-- but
proves John's point quite nicely ... or at least quite humorously! ;-)
(Also anyone offended by comedic profanity, or in the presence of
small children, may wish to avoid watching)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzIq9sVW1u8
- Ed
On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 10:53 AM, John Burger <john@mitre.org> wrote:
> As I believe I have said before, I think this is a nonsensical idea. I do
> not know for sure, of course, but I would wager that anyone who supports
> this idea has never had to perform translation, and is likely monolingual.
>
> There are few, if any, sentences that, in every language AND IN EVERY
> CONTEXT are always translated exactly the same way. Even such simple things
> as "Thank you" have, for instance, multiple possible translations in many
> languages, depending on the situation, the speaker's gender, the recipient's
> age, etc. There is almost never one and only one correct translation
> ESPECIALLY for the simple sentences one might imagine going into such a
> database. These are exactly the kind of utterance with the greatest
> ambiguity.
>
> - John Burger
> MITRE
>
>
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