(no subject)
Sep. 18th, 2003 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dchenesI seem to be off the movie soundtracks kick and on a vocal music kick this morning, to the extent of pulling out the tapes of the Oberlin Women's Chorus concerts I was in. I can sing by myself while I'm doing dishes or doing some other household chores I hate, but there's nothing like singing with other people and having a chord come out so in tune that it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Of course, all the choruses I've heard about here have rehearsals when I have classes. That's the problem with having all my classes at night. Same problem for karate, which I could get back into if I didn't have a class on Thursday night.
This week's translation exercise is a recipe. My enormous French/English dictionary let me down for the first time I can remember. One of the terms I can't translate is a cultural thing, but the other is a verb I'd never come across, and neither my French/English nor my straight French dictionary had it. I was shocked. I had to resort to Babelfish, which did tell me what it meant, and it means what I thought it meant. At least I have the satisfaction of being right. Out of curiosity I ran the cultural term through Babelfish too and got a literal translation, which isn't anywhere close to what it really means. There's a story about a machine translation of an engineering manual in which "hydraulic ram" was translated as "water-powered sheep". That's why there will always be a need for human translators.
As an aside, my big dictionary, which is about three inches thick, is called the "Petit Robert" and cost at least $100 (I bought it at Oberlin and I remember it being a LOT of money). I'd hate to see what the Grand Robert looks like.
It looks like we're going to get rained on tomorrow. How much rain we'll get depends on how much Isabel breaks up on the way across land.
Next week we get our first exam in Semiotics. It's take-home, at least. From the sound of it, it's open-book, too, thank goodness. Tonight I hope I get last week's translation back, corrected. It's one thing to be going to lectures and learning things, but it's nice to know if any of the things I'm learning are actually getting absorbed satisfactorily.
If I really do have from mid-December to mid-January off, would anyone want to see me if I came to Boston to visit?
This week's translation exercise is a recipe. My enormous French/English dictionary let me down for the first time I can remember. One of the terms I can't translate is a cultural thing, but the other is a verb I'd never come across, and neither my French/English nor my straight French dictionary had it. I was shocked. I had to resort to Babelfish, which did tell me what it meant, and it means what I thought it meant. At least I have the satisfaction of being right. Out of curiosity I ran the cultural term through Babelfish too and got a literal translation, which isn't anywhere close to what it really means. There's a story about a machine translation of an engineering manual in which "hydraulic ram" was translated as "water-powered sheep". That's why there will always be a need for human translators.
As an aside, my big dictionary, which is about three inches thick, is called the "Petit Robert" and cost at least $100 (I bought it at Oberlin and I remember it being a LOT of money). I'd hate to see what the Grand Robert looks like.
It looks like we're going to get rained on tomorrow. How much rain we'll get depends on how much Isabel breaks up on the way across land.
Next week we get our first exam in Semiotics. It's take-home, at least. From the sound of it, it's open-book, too, thank goodness. Tonight I hope I get last week's translation back, corrected. It's one thing to be going to lectures and learning things, but it's nice to know if any of the things I'm learning are actually getting absorbed satisfactorily.
If I really do have from mid-December to mid-January off, would anyone want to see me if I came to Boston to visit?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-18 10:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-18 11:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-18 11:49 am (UTC)