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..."Nur wo du zu Fuß warst, bist du auch wirklich gewesen"...
...
Because when just one sentence, like that of Goethe, can generate so many translations or interpretations with different emotional atmospheres, a seemingly innocent remark can spark unintentional heated discussions and cause people to drift apart, instead of finding common ground.....
The same word can have different meanings.
Each person has different associations with one word (e.g. a simple word like farmer : hard-working or not / too much aid payments or not enough / intelligent or not / good to animals or torturing animals / organic or industrial farming / ...) [I have this idea from a "birkenbihl" language course].
So information cannot be "transmitted exactly" between humans by using our language ... even if it is the same language... and it becomes much more ambigous if you translate something (or if you change subject to something like religion / belief ).
I know no German, and almost nothing about Goethe's work, but I think these words work really well - grammar is correct, and is formal and elegant enough to suit a deep thought."Only where you have been on foot, have you really been."
Absolutely no need for correction, SY. A sentence or two in The Great Westward Walk illustrates that notion very well. The protagonist meets three walkers inside a tunnel: where they have been is where he will go, and where he has been is where they will go. At the moment of meeting, they are each present to where they are, the space they share.There are a lot of quotes "attributed" to Goethe whose exact source is, to putting it gently, unknown.
As for "Nur wo du zu Fuß warst, bist du auch wirklich gewesen", as I native German I would translate it as:
"Only where you have been on foot, have you really been."
Native English speakers are welcome to correct my grammar etc. Buen Camino/Guten Weg, SY
The tricky part of the translation was pendiente/slope. In translation dictionaries I've seen outstanding given for pendiente but with a note indicating a debt or other financial usage. It appears that the Spanish think that a debt that is still owed is like something on a slope, it might slide away from you. The English version appears to be much the same, an outstanding debt is like money standing out in a field, something that might disappear quickly.I have passed that sign many times..on foot, so did not take great heed.
I had always thought the garbled English was referring to wind...not slope.
I am glad I was not on a bike.
I would have been just watching for strong wind gusts.
Ah, I envy you, Peter!As long I can read the original I don't even bother to translate .
Ah, I envy you, Peter!
But...in a language that has been learned after infancy, surely you are translating as you read, at least subconsciously? I can read French, for example, but even when I don't have to think about the definitions of familiar words, it's hard to forget that they have come to me through the lens of my natal language.
... But...in a language that has been learned after infancy, surely you are translating as you read, at least subconsciously? ...
Yeah, but you had to learn the what the English word meant somewhere along the way, right? That 'thank you' meant 'danke,' and so on. Even if you know the meaning automatically, that very knowing is based in and filtered through the original translation that happened when you learned it. Except for the words and phrases that have no equivalent, of course...I know that I don't translate subconsciously between German and English as I sometimes know what the English word means without knowing its translation into German.
Well, sure.Any takers?
It may help to explain some of the unexpected reactions we sometimes get to seemingly non controversial posts.
I'm not sure whether it's the language or the cultural background that creates these different associations.
That is why your statement that "those of you who are bilingual have differently wired brains from those of us who aren't" is not such a solid conclusion!Language and culture are inseparable and feed back on each other in countless ways. Language creates culture which creates language. Which develops the brain in particular ways, and affects how we see ourselves and each other. It's really interesting stuff.
I think it depends on what "widely" means. whether the criteria are (a) #people speaking it as natives, (b) #people able to function in it, (c) geographic spread of native speakers, (d) geographic spread of functional speakers, etc.And off topic but I learned that English is the 3rd most widely spoken language in the world, after Mandarin...and.....Spanish!
Yup.(Fortunately, @VNwalking , I think you enjoy a semantic debate and don't mind my arguments.)
That quote isn't a logical deduction, but the results of lots of neurolinguistic studies, such as this one. And you're right - neuroplasticity is a fortunate fact of life and no-one is contesting that. In fact that's the good news - if we become bilingual, we change our minds.That is why your statement that "those of you who are bilingual have differently wired brains from those of us who aren't" is not such a solid conclusion!How do you define "bilingual" and "wiring" - aren't both on a continuum of degree and change? Wiring can be changed, even late in life.
I have no idea, really, what exactly was meant - I was just quoting a study that now I cannot find. But it made me smile. More reason to learn Spanish.I think it depends on what "widely" means. whether the criteria are (a) #people speaking it as natives, (b) #people able to function in it, (c) geographic spread of native speakers, (d) geographic spread of functional speakers, etc.
In a broader sense the use of another language might subtly change your perception of the world and the way you view reality. I don't mean that in a full on Matrix or Carlos Castaneda sort of way, but a little shift of perspective through the use of another language did bring about new horizons (both external and internal) for me.
Any takers?
What I was saying. In a fraction of the words.Man that's esoteric. Purky, what I'm really saying is that its perfectly natural for you to be dour in English, and flamboyant in Italian.
its perfectly natural for you to be dour in English, and flamboyant in Italian.
Here are concepts that are supposed to be equivalent translations but for myself (and I know for certain also for others) the associations are somewhat different in the different languages: laicité/separation of church and state/Trennung von Staat und Kirche and rule of law/Rechtsstaat. Perhaps you experience something similar, ie you feel more free and less restricted because words in English just don't have the same associations as the equivalent words in Dutch?
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