Your most humble servant, Robert Cooper, is now a donor to DU...

...so let's hope the mods don't revoke my membership anytime soon ;-)

I just hope the hackers stay out of Earl's machinery.

And boy am I looking forward to conducting searches =8-}

Servant, you say? Clean my kitchen, please. It's filthy. :P

...and I'll be right over to take care of that for you ;-)

You live in one of my favourite areas. I'm formerly from Ontario, now living in the USA.

:hi:

...one of my best friends is an American who's lived in Canada all his life. He never fails to remind us ;-)

And welcome to DU!

...je suis parlez francais en petite peu.

en -petite- petite peu.

And I'll bet my spelling is none too good either ;-)

Thank you.

http://www.freetranslation.com/

I know just a little bit of French from college, but with the help this puppy, I actually managed to spoof a Parisian into thinking I spoke it fluently. :blush:

A good tool for International relations.

...I've always wanted to translate french more clearly.

:-)

One of my favorite songs is "Autumn Leaves" and particularly the French lyrics.

Here they are:

C’est une chanson, qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais et je t'aimais
Nous vivions tous, les deux ensemble
Toi que m’aimais moi qui t'aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable les pas des amants désunis

When I asked for a "free translation" of this into English, here's what I received (pretty funny, actually...)

This is a song, that resembles us You you liked me and I liked you Us lived all, the two bodies You that liked
me me that liked you But life separates those that like themselves All gently without doing noise And the sea
obliterates on the sand the steps of the lovers separate

I'm glad this isn't an important document or something I would try to use to impress someone on the Internet.

http://varatek.com/scott/jaberwocky.html

http://varatek.com/scott/jaberwocky_french.html

Even humans have a tough time with that one.

For conversational translations the vocabulary is much simpler and the underlying assumption is that you are trying to convey simple messages which are universal, and therefore easy to translate.

or other groups that don't speak the same language? This just proves the point, and we're dealing with essentially the same Latin based languages. What about Chinese to English, or English to Russian, etc.?

Blows my mind...

It is still a phonetic conversion; one symbol to one sound, more or less. But Chinese, that is tough!

The really mind-blowing aspect of Chinese is that it has no one-to-one conversion from pictographs to phonemes. People from different regions of China have different phonemes for the same symbol, so they cannot communicate verbally, but they can communicate in written form.

But that's straying far from the topic. I only posted in French because "at your service" is an archaic expression in English, but still in common use in French, Castillian, and other Romance languages. So I was guessing that the poster, being from Canada, was exposed to some French. So a greeting in French seemed appropriate.

Do cvidanya!

It's a direct translation, it appears. It doesn't make any translation for sentence structure.

I'll bear in mind your example if I choose to translate french poetry. I think I've actually got a book on early french literature and comedy. I'll have to see what I can dig up.

Thanks.

We are in Portland, Oregon and are really enjoying our trips to British Columbia. We used to get up to Montreal and Quebec City when we lived in Boston, Massachusetts.

...and I've lived in Vancouver and Montreal as well.

Je parle un petit peu du francais. And I also welcome you to DU.

...and I take it my grammar wasn't spectacular either ;-)

So much for being a french maid

=8-}

I hope you enjoy DU...I love Canadians.

Now go scrape that gunk off my tub!:P

...and I'll get to your tub right after I finish cleaning Hardhead's kitchen. ;-)

Hey could you get me another drink then?
And do some straightening up around here. This place is a mess.

...right after I clean up Hardhead's kitchen and scrub Fuzzy Slippers tub. ;-)

...just when you were going to get on board....}(

I'm sure you must have had a lottery going over when I'd join. Who was closest to the mark? What was the prize?

;-)

:toast: :thumbsup:

:hi:

but you already have more posts than I do, so you probably have been here longer. You should welcome me!:evilgrin:

:hi:

and a Welcome, back atcha!

nice to 'meet' you.

"met", briefly, in another thread. I think I posted to one of your replies, or vise versa.