1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

Need Help with Language Translation

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by TonyPSchaefer, Mar 22, 2006.

  1. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2004
    14,816
    2,498
    66
    Location:
    Far-North Chicagoland
    Vehicle:
    2017 Prius Prime
    Model:
    Prime Advanced
    Long story short, an inconsiderate and rude coworker wiped out the hard drive on one of my development PCs. Then I was told that because I didn't have a sign on the PC it was partially my fault. In my defense, there are more than a dozen PCs in this room (all on different tables), mine had my materials and notes scattered on the desk, the coworker had seen me working on that computer every day for weeks, and he actually disassembled a little network of hardware devices I had. After all that, he claimed that he didn't know and wrote it off as "these things happen." I maintain meticulous backups and lost no data but was still very frustrated - as I'm sure some of you know, the creation of a test environment can take days to perfect and directly affects the outcome of the development.

    So I'm making a sign.
    But not just any sign; I'm making a sign that says "Do Not Touch."
    But not just any "Do Not Touch" sign; I'm making one in as many different languages as I can.

    Basically, I want a sheet of paper covered in various languages all proclaiming that this piece of equipment is to be left alone. And that's where my international Priuschat friends can help me. I have English pretty well covered. :) But I am, for the most part, completely monolinguistic. If you know how to say "Do Not Touch" in any language other than English, please tell me how. If you want to be cute and say "I will kill you" that's fine also. I'm not looking for an Americanized translation or a Babblefish approximation; I want something that a native speaker would naturally say in their native tongue in their native land to other native speakers. Do not assume that I have anything already. Latin, Hebrew, Yiddish, Hindi, Spanish, Greek, German, Italian, Japanese, Pig Latin, whatever. Bring 'em on!
     
  2. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2004
    14,487
    1,518
    0
    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Do not touch: NO TOCAR

    (Spanish)

    Note: in Spanish if you want to put an exclamation point for emphasis after the phrase, you also put an upside-down exclamation point before the phrase. I could have typed that above, but special characters are not always displayed correctly on different computers.

    Spanish is the only foreign language I know. If you wish to amplify the phrase, let me know what you want to say and I'll translate it. I'll leave it to you whether you want to say more than simply Do not touch.
     
  3. kam

    kam New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 21, 2004
    30
    0
    0
    Here's French: Ne touchez pas
     
  4. Emma

    Emma New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2006
    122
    0
    0
    Location:
    Lake Erie Region - USA
    I have found the babelfish website very useful for translations. It will translate to/from a plethora of languages, including Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Korean, Japanese, etc.
     
  5. EricGo

    EricGo New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2005
    1,805
    0
    0
    Location:
    Albuquerque, NM (SouthWest US)
    Don't Touch, in hebrew
     
  6. Betelgeuse

    Betelgeuse Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    1,460
    24
    1
    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
     
  7. Emma

    Emma New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2006
    122
    0
    0
    Location:
    Lake Erie Region - USA
    I was so excited that I thought I could help someone, I must have missed that part. :(
     
  8. EricGo

    EricGo New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2005
    1,805
    0
    0
    Location:
    Albuquerque, NM (SouthWest US)
    Yeah, but that makes for a longer sentence, because it would have to be

    "Touch this, you die"
     
  9. Betelgeuse

    Betelgeuse Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    1,460
    24
    1
    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Yeah. Babelfish is pretty cool, but only if you're translating a couple words. If you're doing any significant text, it tends to mangle it pretty badly. Just try translating a passage from English to another language, and then back to English. If you run the passage back and forth through through the translator a few times, it gets fairly mangled.
     
  10. Emma

    Emma New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2006
    122
    0
    0
    Location:
    Lake Erie Region - USA
    Yes, I've run into that problem, as well. But I thought since it was a short phrase, it might be a good source. Unfortunately, I missed the part where he said he already knew about it! :blink:
     
  11. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2005
    9,810
    466
    0
    Location:
    MD
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Oday Otnay Ouchtay

    pig latin.

    (hey, you mentioned it)

    well, ONE version of pig latin. i know there are many.
     
  12. JackDodge

    JackDodge Gold Member

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2005
    2,366
    4
    0
    Location:
    Bloomfield Hills, MI
    Vehicle:
    Other Hybrid
    Or if you had a Mac, you'd have it built in on the Dashboard :p Windows users don't know how rough they have it :rolleyes:

    Chinese (simplified Han): 不要接触
    Chinese (traditional Han): 不要接觸
    Dutch: Raak niet
    French: Ne touchez pas
    German: Berühren Sie sich nicht
    Greek: Μην αγγίξτε
    Italian: Non tocchi
    Japanese: 触れてはいけない
    Korean: 만지지 말라
    Portuguese: Não toque
    Russian: Не коснитесь
    Spanish: No toque
    English: You touch, you DIE!
    B)
     
  13. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2004
    14,816
    2,498
    66
    Location:
    Far-North Chicagoland
    Vehicle:
    2017 Prius Prime
    Model:
    Prime Advanced
    Thanks everyone so far.

    For Pig Latin, I'm going with "U-day ott-nay uch-tah"
     
  14. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2004
    14,487
    1,518
    0
    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    When I was living in Mexico a friend back home wrote me a letter in English, then ran it through one of the on-line translators, and sent me the Spanish. Most of the letter made no sense at all. Some of the phrases were downright comical. As an example, he made mention of the board of directors of a local organization. It tranlated "board" as if it was a plank of lumber. And the whole letter was filled with that sort of stuff. Neither the "board" nor the "directors" in "board of directors" is translated in the phrase as it would be translated on its own. But the translating programs are too idiotically stupid to know that.

    They are fun only if you are completely ignorant of the target language. Then you can believe you've made a translation. In fact, all you've done is created meaningless gibberish which a speaker of the target language will not understand in the slightest.
     
  15. hybridTHEvibe

    hybridTHEvibe New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2006
    198
    0
    0
    WHOA, how is that possible that Mystery Squid didn't respond to this post?
    He must have overlooked it, because it's absolutely impossible that this "man" with such a vast amount of knowledge, world traveller and I am sure a polygot would come up with at least 23 versions of this phrase.
     
  16. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

    Joined:
    May 18, 2005
    2
    3
    0
    oooooh, you're a bitter little man today eh? Couple of anti-squids posts there eh?

    :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

    Pssst. USE the ignore function. ;)