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]

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.
:^\