[Mageia-discuss] Cultural difference: indirect request <---> direct request

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2012/7/13 Goh Lip <lipg at gmx.com>:
> On 07/14/2012 03:24 AM, Marja van Waes wrote:
>>
>> The only difference was in the interpretation:
>
>
> Precisely. What often passes as a cultural difference is usually only a
> matter of interpretation; especially where differences in the connotations
> of words of different languages are not apparent. To take a mild example,
> 'welcome' (to express appreciation for thanks) would be 'du jour', 'bitte'
> etc, not 'bienvenu', 'willkommen' etc.

Actually the phrase is "You are welcome". This one is a good example
of something called "synonym". An expression which translates into
several different meanings, depending on the context. I learned
English in school and right from the start I also learned that there
are such synonyms in all languages. This is the main reason why such
things like Google translator more often than not make really big
mistakes. And it is the reason why German translations from English
often need a lot more words than the original text (I've been
experiencing that ever since I started to translate documents).

"You are welcome" can be the reply to a "Thank you" or a greeting when
you enter a house. It can also mean that your participation in a group
or project is wanted and/or appreciated by other people in the group
or project. This is one of the most known synonyms. There other (more
local) expressions to reply to "Thank you", like "No sweat!" which
means "it is/was not a big thing to help".

It is quite normal to hit misunderstandings because somebody uses such
a synonym, most of us are not learned translators. The more important
is it to refrain from using too many of those and rather use a clear
and precise phrasing of what we want to say.

The essence of translating is to interpret the English language we are
using here in the meaning of the English language, not in the direct
translation of words (which could lead to wrong or sometimes very
funny translations, like "It's raining cats and dogs", an English
phrase for heavy rain). Or in other words: Sometimes we must interpret
meanings, not words. So, if somebody writes "yes" or "no" then the
meaning is "yes" or "no". Not the "yes" or "no" of your local language
but the "yes" and "no" as used in the English culture. Otherwise we
will run into misunderstandings or even conflicts all the time.

(I'm sure that this could have been said in much less words - but as
the majority of us I am not a native speaker of English!)

-- 
wobo
.