Engleski kutak: Improve your English — Chat II (English only)

[Emericzy]

Dilberth kaže:

Bullying often continues throughout the life, only the style and methods change.

Agreed, but bullying is predominantly a childhood game. I am arguing against Feet's proposal that children are somehow a different, better species. They are not. They have no character of their own. As soon as they are able to imitate, they imitate. They imitate their stupid parents. In good things and bad. Lacking many adult controls, they are sometimes worse than adults, e.g. in bullying.

[Dilberth]

Emericzy kaže:

Agreed, but bullying is predominantly a childhood game. I am arguing against Feet's proposal that children are somehow a different, better species. They are not. They have no character of their own. As soon as they are able to imitate, they imitate. They imitate their stupid parents. In good things and bad. Lacking many adult controls, they are sometimes worse than adults, e.g. in bullying.

Well said. This is just one of the liberal myths sold to us. Remember the feminist myth about boys being boys only because they play with GI-Joe toys?

[FeetF1]

Emericzy kaže:

Lacking many adult controls, they are sometimes worse than adults, e.g. in bullying.

Kids fight, they call each other names and can be very cruel to others they don't like, that's true. But they also reconcile.

So, then grown-ups are better?
One research showed that the bosses (people who have power & control) are most likely to be psychopats.

As our humorist Ladislav Radek once stated:
Ljudi su kao i zubi, čim slađe žive - brže se kvare.

[Ista dy Ajelo]

FeetF1 kaže:

Kids fight, they call each other names and can be very cruel to others they don't like, that's true. But they also reconcile.

So, then grown-ups are better?
One research showed that the bosses (people who have power & control) are most likely to be psychopats.

As our humorist Ladislav Radek once stated:
Ljudi su kao i zubi, čim slađe žive - brže se kvare.

Lord of the flies springs to mind when discussing children with no influence from adults. If I recall corectlly, even teens cannot fully grasp that their actions have consequences and if you can't understand consequences your behavior will not be mitigated - you'll do whatever you want to get whatever you want, as soon as possible.

[grawlix]

Recently I found out that the correct way to say "I will try to convince you" is "I will try and convice you". I read it more than once in books written in English. What's the logic behind that?

[Emericzy]

Looking for ordinary logic in a language is futile.

No, "I will try and convice you" is not the correct way to say it. It's OK, it's common and colloquial. However, "I will try to convince you" is just as good -- if not better.

[FeetF1]

Emericzy, how English knows you so well?

[Emericzy]

FeetF1 kaže:

Emericzy, how English knows you so well?

At least 2500 books in English read, thousands of copies of magazines devoted to a very broad range of topics, thousands of issues of various newspapers.

Years and years of work in international travel business.

Years and years of work in publishing of English-language publications.

Years and years of translation work.

Love and talent.

[FeetF1]

Emericzy kaže:

At least 2500 books in English read...

Impressive!

Hev ju pabljišed eni buks of jor ovn?

[Emericzy]

FeetF1 kaže:

Impressive!

Hev ju pabljišed eni buks of jor ovn?

Nope. Haven't written any, if you don't count a booklet on engineering history. Just a lot of translations and a few short stories. I'm not much of a writer.

[FeetF1]

Emericzy kaže:

Nope. Haven't written any, if you don't count a booklet on engineering history. Just a lot of translations and a few short stories. I'm not much of a writer.

OK, writing (and translating) is also work - you need time, inspiration and will to do it.
From what I have read, you do a very good translations of poetry from Cro into Ingljiš.
And, I must admit, you do it better than I do it (I guess it has to do something with those 2 500 books read.)

Of course, making big money from publishing books (translations Cro>English) is not very likely to happen - but, why not try to make some booklet,
with - let's say - 50 translated poems of Croatian authors - and you can choose the short poems.

The job could, naturally, be tricky - just because the poems are short doesn't mean they'll be that easy to 'convert' to English.
(But you did few of them on this topic - some of them at my request, although reluctantly at first.)

[Emericzy]

FeetF1 kaže:

why not try to make some booklet,
with - let's say - 50 translated poems of Croatian authors - and you can choose the short poems.

The job could, naturally, be tricky - just because the poems are short doesn't mean they'll be that easy to 'convert' to English.
(But you did few of them on this topic - some of them at my request, although reluctantly at first.)

It would take too much time away from money-making work. I'm not that charitable.

Should someone else donate the rest of the work on the book production and publication, I just might donate translations or do them for a near-symbolic sum.

[FeetF1]

Emericzy kaže:

It would take too much time away from money-making work. I'm not that charitable.

Should someone else donate the rest of the work on the book production and publication, I just might donate translations or do them for a near-symbolic sum.

Well, everybody has its own terms & conditions. Everyone has its own price - and 'near symbolic sum' can mean just any amount of cash.

Here's my work, done about 4 years ago.

https://www.forum.hr/showpost.php?p=3...postcount=6693

Now, if I do 1-2 translations per year, in ten years time I'll have 10-20 poems done.

[Dilberth]

FeetF1 kaže:

Well, everybody has its own terms & conditions. Everyone has its own price - and 'near symbolic sum' can mean just any amount of cash.

Here's my work, done about 4 years ago.

https://www.forum.hr/showpost.php?p=3...postcount=6693

Now, if I do 1-2 translations per year, in ten years time I'll have 10-20 poems done.

Very nice translation, but I was wondering if licentia poetica allows us referring to a bug as "she"?

[FeetF1]

Dilberth kaže:

Very nice translation, but I was wondering if licentia poetica allows us referring to a bug as "she"?

Well, first, me in English not perfect.
Second... My English is very influenced by my Croatian. I know the pronoun should be 'it'. Cesarić uses 'bubica' (which is female gender) and 'stvorenjce' (which is neuter gender).

It is Dec 25th.
I've just read about Christmas Truce that happened at this time of year in 1914, during the WWI.
The German soldiers in trenches started to sing 'Silent Night' and decorate the Christmas trees.
British soldiers were surprised at first (they thought it was some tricky game from the enemy) - but they responded with Christmas songs.
Soldiers approached each other, shook hands, exchanged gifts (cigarettes, chocolates, drink...) - and they buried the dead from the both sides who were left in no man's land between the trenches.

The Christmas truce (German: Weihnachtsfrieden; French: Trêve de Noël) was a series of widespread but unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front around Christmas 1914. Roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in the unofficial cessations of hostility.

The events of the truce were not reported for a week, in an unofficial press embargo which was eventually broken by the New York Times on 31 December. The British papers quickly followed, printing numerous first-hand accounts from soldiers in the field, taken from letters home to their families, and editorials on "one of the greatest surprises of a surprising war". By 8 January pictures had made their way to the press, and both the Mirror and Sketch printed front-page photographs of British and German troops mingling and singing between the lines. The tone of the reporting was strongly positive, with the Times endorsing the "lack of malice" felt by both sides and the Mirror regretting that the "absurdity and the tragedy" would begin again.

Christmas Truce

The documentary:
Peace In A No Mans Land

Unfortunately, the Higher Command didn't like what was happening on the front - you are not suppose to make friends with the enemy - your 'duty' to homeland is too shoot and kill them. Instructions were sent from the headquarters that fighting has to carry on.

So, it was considered a normal thing to fight and kill - but to cease fire, make friends and avoid shooting is being called high treason.

The War started in August. By November & December, soldiers were exhausted, they were cold and the war didn't seem it will end by the Christmas, as it was promised to them. So, a few days of peace that December came as a time-out. And the fighting soon continued.

Armistice
Dec 25th, 1914

There was a good reason
For a high treason -
The men wanted peace.
But High Command gave an 'expertise':
'You shall continue to fight -
And stop singing Silent Night.'
So the bloodshed carried on -
Soldiers were fighting for homeland
Far away from home in foreign wasteland.
It took three more years of fighting to achieve peace -
To sign a piece of paper which read 'armistice.'
It should read:
Bloodshed.

[Dilberth]

FeetF1 kaže:

Well, first, me in English not perfect.
Second... My English is very influenced by my Croatian. I know the pronoun should be 'it'. Cesarić uses 'bubica' (which is female gender) and 'stvorenjce' (which is neuter gender).

Za moj pojam prijevod je odlican i "sweet". Meni je samo nekako upalo u oci i izgledalo cudno ono "she".
Sto zapravo pitam, dali bi prijevod izgubio ista u svom šarmu da je bubica bila "it"?

[Ista dy Ajelo]

Dilberth, in English, please.

[slafko]

FeetF1 kaže:

There was a good reason
For a high treason -
The men wanted peace.
But High Command gave an 'expertise':
'You shall continue to fight -
And stop singing Silent Night.'
So the bloodshed carried on -
Soldiers were fighting for homeland
Far away from home in foreign wasteland.
It took three more years of fighting to achieve peace -
To sign a piece of paper which read 'armistice.'
It should read:
Bloodshed.

More violets, less violence!

[Ista dy Ajelo]

slafko kaže:

More violets, less violence!

Slafko, you're a sight for sore eyes.

[FeetF1]

slafko kaže:

More violets, less violence!

^
That's quintessence.
Make love (don't forget to put rubber on) - and not war.