November 2019 - Day 1

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, ladies, let's start this thing once again! Here is the place to tell us about your daily success (or the lack of it)!

May the magic be with us all!

Comments

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

And since I'm here already, let's report the funny (?) thing that happened to me. A couple of days ago I took the time to translate several pages for the next chapter of The Sins of the Mothers (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12468508/chapters/28377308), my original Star Trek/Original BSG crossover. Today I decided to start pico with typing up that part. And what did I discover when I opened the long-unused document? That save for the very last couple of lines, the whole thing has already been translated and typed up years ago. Why it doesn't show up in my hand-written pages, I have no idea, but I've definitely did the thing twice. *is annoyed*

Anyway, snippet:

Dr. Mulhall fingered her tricorder nervously, while looking after the retreating backs of Decker and Ser’hath’trov’dab. The tall, thin man in his burgundy-and-black uniform made an odd couple with the unusually large, ebony black Dairu who still barely reached to his chest. The astrobiologist smiled faintly, forgetting her concerns for a moment… but only for a moment.

“You have no reason to worry,“ Leila Kalomi said, knotting together her long, straight black hair on the nape of her neck. “The XO can take care of himself... and we are, at least, not alone.

“I know,” Ann Mulhall sighed. “And yet… despite the fact that I’ve participated in dozens of planetary missions, I’m more nervous than ever before.”

“Perhaps because this time we can’t count on the reassuring presence of the Enterprise in geosynchronous orbit,” the botanist suggested. “Most Starfleet officers are used to have a starship as back-up, whatever they are doing.”

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

"“Most Starfleet officers are used to have a starship as back-up, whatever they are doing.”"

Should be HAVING a starship (?)
:^)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It should? I don't always get these differences in English. So, how would the sentence sound correctly? Used to having or used having? I really don't have a clue.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

'Used to having' maybe sounds a bit better, although I didn't think 'used to have' sounded wrong.

Of course, the more you say them, the more they all sound wrong!

[elmey.livejournal.com]

"used to having" is correct in this case. DO NOT ASK me to quote the pertinent rule though ;)

You should check your papers, perhaps you translated even more and forgot :) How long has it been since you started translating?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

English has rules? That's new to me. I always thought the deciding factor was the weather, what day of the week we're having or one's religious devotion. Or something equally illogical. *g*

I've started translating this particular story a little more than two years ago. It was originally finished in 1999, at a time when my English was practically nonexistent, so it was written partly in German, partly in Hungarian. Of course, it couldn't be published like that anywhere, but translating from two different languages into a third one is so tedious, that's why I have such long breaks in-between.

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

The problem has to do with TENSE.
This is an action (star fleet officers are "used to having") that's always been going on and will continue to go on.

I recognized your mistake but I'm finding it very difficult to explain it to you, sorry.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'll never, ever understand English tenses. Not even if I live a thousand years. It's hopeless.

I'm Hungarian, and our language has exactly three tenses: past, present and future. Everything else is context. It works like a charm. I grew up with German as my second language, starting at the age of 3, and I can handle German tenses without problems. They are logical. Hell, I could even follow French tenses in the half year I was learning French for the heck of it. No problem. English tenses, though...

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

Want me to let you in on a little secret?
There are a lot of native English speakers here in America who never master all the tenses either and they get by without them--more or less.

America's schools have really gone to seed in the past quarter of a century thanks to their trying to make school easy enough that everyone can pass and get a high school diploma.
:^\

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Hey, I think you do great work. I can't handle English as well as you do.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Don't be ridiculous, you're a native speaker! You feel these things by instinct. I have to learn them. And some things are simply beyond me. Like English tenses.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of English teachers who would disagree with you... but, thank you.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

Did you get a different result each time? That could be interesting to see, like one of the academics at my old job who marked the same project twice and didn't notice :-)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was just a couple of pages, and the results were fairly alike. My brain seems to be consistent, when it doesn't come to mark actual facts. *g*

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

Not a pleasant surprise to find the translation already done:( May I suggest that somehow the pages with the translation to English were accidentally put on the transporter and sent to Deep Space Nine?

I have nothing to offer regarding English verb syntax except my sympathies as you endeavor to unravel its mysteries.