Mastodawn

Request to speakers of languages other than English, French and German

https://lemy.lol/post/63056813

Request to speakers of languages other than English, French and German - lemy.lol

Hi thanks for looking at my query. I recently as a joke changed some writing on the board of a friends EAL (English as an Additional Language) classroom from English to German. She liked the idea, but using Google Translate resulted in an overly formal phrasing that made it seem more a demand than a suggestion or polite request. So my ask, if you speak (or I guess write) another language I would love to request you take a moment to translate “Please stack chairs at the end of the day” into whichever language you can help me with, it should be a polite request though. I’m really not sure what the composition of her class is but she is a fan of languages as a whole so even if it’s not a language that is represented in her class I am sure it will be a bit of fun and a talking point to figure it out. If you have the time and the skills to help I really appreciate it, otherwise I appreciate you taking the time to read this post. Have a fantastic day.

oni ᓚᘏᗢ 5d ago

Spanish: “Por favor, apila las sillas al final del día.” It can be more polite if you add and “Gracias” at the end to give thanks before hand: “Por favor, apilas las sillas al final del día. Gracias.”

Gracias.

Do you mind if I ask, what makes “apile” more polite than “apila”?

darkdemize 5d ago

Non-native Spanish speaker, but I believe it’s in the directness of the command. Apila is telling someone to do it, whereas apile is just saying it needs to be done.

Ah, cool. If I understand, what I would achieve with extra verbosity in English is achieved by conjugation in this example. Or I am speaking out of my posterior. Either way thanks for the clarification.

Nightsound 5d ago

Not exactly. Saying it needs to be done would look more like “Las sillas deben ser / deberán ser apiladas […]”

oni ᓚᘏᗢ 5d ago

Yeah, something like “las sillas deben apilarse” is not a direct translation but the idea is there.

To everyone except me in this comment thread, I respect your superior knowledge, ability to translate between different languages and thank you for your time.

I would love to devote the time to learning Spanish, but I am afraid that’s not practical for me right now.

That being said I obviously need to learn a little more about how this works so I will do some further reading about “usted”.

You all rock! Thanks again!

oni ᓚᘏᗢ 5d ago

Sorry, but is not like that. I’ve responded already to its question.

Request to speakers of languages other than English, French and German - Lemmy.World

Hi thanks for looking at my query. I recently as a joke changed some writing on the board of a friends EAL (English as an Additional Language) classroom from English to German. She liked the idea, but using Google Translate resulted in an overly formal phrasing that made it seem more a demand than a suggestion or polite request. So my ask, if you speak (or I guess write) another language I would love to request you take a moment to translate “Please stack chairs at the end of the day” into whichever language you can help me with, it should be a polite request though. I’m really not sure what the composition of her class is but she is a fan of languages as a whole so even if it’s not a language that is represented in her class I am sure it will be a bit of fun and a talking point to figure it out. If you have the time and the skills to help I really appreciate it, otherwise I appreciate you taking the time to read this post. Have a fantastic day.

darkdemize 5d ago

Wouldn’t the tu version be apilas? I’m not super familiar with that particular verb.

oni ᓚᘏᗢ 5d ago

Yeah, but that would be in active tense. “Apilas las sillas” would be “You stack the chairs”.

Nightsound 5d ago

Native here.

“Apila” is refering to the listener as “tú” (a.k.a. “you”).

“Apile” is refering to the listener as “usted” (basically a more formal version of “you”).

In Spanish, despite both “tú” and “usted” refering to the 2nd person singular, different conjugations are used in each of them. “Tú” uses the standard 2nd person conjugation, while “Usted” picks the 3rd person’s one instead for whatever reason.

Ok, sorry to come across as ignorant, but to pick a random example would this be the difference between “Excuse me” and Excuse me sir/ma’am?" The content remains the same but it’s usage would fall more into a formal way of speaking?

If you as an adult were addressing a class of teenagers but were only making a request, not a demand would either be more appropriate?

Thanks for the insight I really appreciate it.

Not the person you asked, but a native Spanish speaker myself. The formal way to say “excuse me” (for example to a teacher or boss, or to a stranger on the street if you wish to be polite) would be “disculpe señor/a”, or “discúlpeme señor/a”. You can also remove señor/a and simply say “disculpe” or “discúlpeme” to anyone and it will still carry the same meaning, since the verb in both cases already implies it’s about yourself.

The informal way would be “disculpame” or “discúlpame”, although in this case adding señor/a sounds way off. You can definitely add a name though, ie, “discúlpame Shads” and that would be okay.

You know the more I reflect on this the more sure I am that I am falling into a trap that I am sure a lot of English speakers fall into. I am trying to apply English rules to Spanish as there is a shared language root and a bunch of shared words and at some level syntax. I need to acknowledge that Spanish is a distinct mature language and trying to treat it as a different dialect of English is a wall I need to stop butting my head off.

Really appreciate you stepping in to clarify for someone with my calcified language abilities, the lack of comprehension is entirely my own.

I think I will go with “Por favor, apila las sillas al final del día. Gracias.” and save deeper understanding until I can devote more time and mental energy to understanding Spanish as Spanish.

You rock!

Fair conclusion, but don’t be so hard on yourself. Honestly as a native speaker these things don’t come across as “rules” for me even though of course they have rules. It’s just the natural and obvious way of using the language. And that’s something very hard to get right if you weren’t raised with that language. In other words, I’ve heard a gazillion people say so many examples of phrases in Spanish since before I have memory, that hearing or seeing something outside of the expected pattern stands out immediately, but I can’t always explain why.

It’s unreasonable to expect ever having the same level of fluency with a language you weren’t raised with. I’ve been speaking English half my life and I still screw up sometimes.

Thank you, I should disclose that I am a Gen X Australian, we do self deprecation at a super advanced level. I absolutely get that language becomes so engrained that things just don’t sound/read as correct for reasons you would understand if you took the time to think about them, but you don’t really have to expend any effort to know it.

I promise I’m not being too hard on myself just accepting there’s things I don’t know and haven’t earnt a shortcut to bypass learning to understand.

Also, if you are adhressing the request to a group, it could be better to go with “Por favor apilen las sillas al finalizar el día”, plural

That’s a great point, thank you.

floquant 4d ago

Italian has a similar thing, where it uses the (often implied) “her” pronoun conjugation as a formal structure, regardless of the person’s gender. From what the other Spanish commenters have said I would say it differs from it in that it conveys respect more than kindness, so it would sound weird in your context - but it might also be because I would translate the “command” version in the 2nd person plural and this only applies to the singular.

It used to be used with your parents not that long ago, that is almost completely gone now but it is still very common when talking to your teacher, businesses, letters, officers, old people, etc. It is also the default between strangers, but that has been slowly changing since the 2000s

I’m super grateful for the explanation, does it make sense that I lack an adequate frame of reference for this? I did Latin many years ago, poorly. Since then it’s been primarily English with a touch of guidebook Japanese phrases. I just don’t have the mental agility to make the connections. But I am curious and when I am no longer working shift work I might delve into some language learning to improve the neural elasticity.

floquant 4d ago

It does, it’s a very weird thing if you’re not used to it, you’re not dumb or anything. I recognize it’s a completely alien concept, there is no analogue in English, and it stacks on top of the singular and plural "you"s being different and having gendered words making it extra difficult to fully conjugate a sentence for speakers of languages that lack those features. But 90% of the time the meaning gets across anyway and we don’t care :) (unless you’re French /j)

oni ᓚᘏᗢ 5d ago

In spanish there are two ways to refer to people, one is formal and another one is informal. When you want to talk to someone in a formal way you must use verbs in a special form with a special personal pronoun called “usted”.

Formal way: “Usted es muy guapo” (You are so handsome).
Informal way: “Eres muy guapo” (You are so handsome).

Look how in the first sentence we used “usted” and then we used the verb “ser” in third person and in present tense. In the second example we use directly the verb “ser” in imperfect tense. I could wrote “Por favor, usted apile las sillas al final del día. Gracias”, but that’s too much formal, to the point that can be felt like passive-agressive to some people, since people doesn’t use “usted” too often before the verb. Even you can say “Es muy guapo” too keep the formal but more in a casual way.

I’m a native speaker, not a teacher or something, so, please, refer to this site to get more information. es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usted

Usted - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

TheLeadenSea 5d ago

Stapla stolar i slutet av dagen, snälla! (I think that is correct Swedish, but I don’t speak it as fluently as English :p)

Tack Hope that’s correct.

DreasNil 4d ago

“Vänligen stapla stolarna mot slutet av dagen” sounds more proper, and a bit less rude ☺️

Tack

(That is “Thank you” right?)

I like being less rude. 😀

DreasNil 4d ago

Yes, that’s correct!

CptBread 4d ago

Snälla would not be used like that, unless it’s more of a desperate plea and not a polite request. You could either move it to the start or replace it with tack or even do both. Probably would also be better to use på or vid insted of i. Stolar should also be stolarna as you are talking about a specific set of chairs(the ones in the classroom) not just any chair anywhere. So in conclusion: “Snälla stapla stolarna vid slutet av dagen, tack”

TheLeadenSea 4d ago

Tack så mycket! Jag har borttagen min kommentar, du är mycket bättre med svenska än mig ;)

SubArcticTundra 5d ago

Zde prosím odložte židle na konci dne 🇨🇿

SubArcticTundra 5d ago

The Ž is pronounced like the J in J’ai m’appelle

Děkuju

Luckily for all of us I won’t need to mangle the language by trying to speak it (I’m sure my accent and pronunciation would be awful).

But I am glad to know about that pronunciation, I know so little about your language it’s great to find out a little more.

SubArcticTundra 5d ago

Haha :-) Actually Czech is refreshingly straight-forward to pronounce – it’s a phonetic language, meaning that once you know what sound each letter makes, you literally just string them together!

I am a simple, brain addled, English as a first language speaker in a majority English speaking country. I am afraid I would need to actively seek to learn further languages and there never seems to be enough time or mental capacity. I have infinite respect for everyone than can learn more than one language, especially when the languages they know are widely divergent or don’t share the same language root. But I might have to give Czech a look and see if I can pick up a little pronunciation. Thanks again!

Hey, I randomly selected a language to go first and it ended up being Czech. I got a reply under my note: Ano! Yea! But I must admit I am reasonably certain it was a machine translation. I don’t believe there were any Czech speakers in the class.

My friend was SUPER excited by the new language and apparently it sparked a good conversation in her class, she couldn’t wait to see what’s next.

Thank you again!

SubArcticTundra 7h ago

Pleased to hear that!!

sznowicki 5d ago

Polish: Po zajęciach proszę złożyć razem krzesła.

Literał: after lectures please stack chairs together.

I could translate it more literal to original but no one speaks like this so any close translation from English would sound weird for my taste.

Dziękuję

(I hope that’s correct)

That’s a perfect interpretation of my intent, if she has any Polish students (or people familiar with Polish) I hope that will bring a smile.

sznowicki 5d ago

I’m sure some other Pole will come here and make even better version of this tho. We have this saying “where’s two Poles there’s three opinions” and while helping with UI translations I noticed this is not just a saying, it’s a fact. Especially when it comes to our language. :)

I love that! I mentioned elsewhere, but this is a frivolous kind of request, I am so grateful for people willing to indulge it. But I didn’t realise the cultural context would be so enjoyable. Thanks again!

Dæmon S.5d ago

@[email protected] @[email protected]

Brazilian Portuguese: "Por gentileza, empilhe as cadeiras ao final do dia".

If colloquial or more informal translations are desired:
- "Empilhar as cadeiras não faz cair a mão" (roughly "you won't lose your hands if you take the time to stack the chairs")
- "ô mossss, empilhascadêra fazenofavô?" (A very informal transcription from "Mineiro" (people from the state of Minas Gerais) accent for "Hey girl/boy, [can you] stack the chairs, doing [everyone] a favor [please]?"

Muito obrigado.

I really like your informal suggestions, having some cultural context is awesome!

Treczoks 5d ago

Side note: Forget Google Translate. Better try deepl.com instead.

I’ll keep that in mind, but to be honest, this has been so much fun. I love that there is a community of people willing to devote even a tiny fraction of their brain power to such a frivolous request. Plus I am getting all sorts of little fun side details. I would never ask anyone to give me more than a few seconds of their time, but this whole thing has already put a smile on my face.

In future I’ll check out DeepL though. Have a great day.

HejMedDig 5d ago

Danish: Stabel venligst stolene når dagen er omme

Literal translation: Stack please chairs when end of day

Tak

I am always fascinated by differences in sentence structure. Plus seeing the literal translatuon makes me think of the times I have talked with Danes who have found English sentence structure odd.

SmoothOperator 4d ago

Det er sjovt, originalt havde “stable” bydeformen “stabl”, som selvfølgelig ser skaber ud. Er det ændret i ordbogen siden?

HejMedDig 4d ago

Aner det ikke, retstavning er ikke min stærke side. Synes i hvert fald bare at “stabl” så helt forkert ud

SmoothOperator 4d ago

Helt fair, det er også sådan det siges jo. Og jeg tror måske også det efterhånden er blevet sådan man skriver det :)

I believe in esperanto it should be

bonvolu stakigi la seĝojn ĉe la fino de la tago

Literally translates to something like

“Please make stacked the chairs at the end of the day”

Dankon

Esperanto seems like an interesting language to study, do you find my opportunities to use it?

Basically none. A couple friends have learned a little bit with me, and I’ve sought out a couple Esperanto books, podcasts, etc.

But otherwise I can’t say that I’ve ever randomly run into another esperantist I could talk to, and I’m not the type of person who sucks out clubs and conventions or making friends with strangers online.

But it’s an easy language to learn, and I feel like it’s taught me how to learn a language, and I think that I’ll be better prepared if I ever decide to try picking up another language somewhere down the line.

And while I’m not holding my breath, I like the idea of an international auxiliary language, and while there’s some valid criticism of Esperanto for that purpose (like that it’s too eurocentric) it’s probably about the best option that we have right now since it already exists, there’s people who actually speak it and it doesn’t have all of the weird grammar rules and such that natural languages all tend to have.

Awesome, you actually answered all the questions I had bubbling away in my head but didn’t want to be too presumptive in asking. More decades ago than I care admit, I did a 25 hour Latin course. Very little of it stuck with me but it seems like Esperanto could fill a similar niche to the one I was trying to fill by learning latin, as a bridging language to be more capable in the Romance languages. I’m sure there are studies out there on language as sociology, as the largest con-lan I am aware of I wonder how deep that research runs? Another thing for me to read up on I guess.

Thanks again!

I’ve never dived too deep into in, but I know there has been some research into native Esperanto speakers (denaskuloj) because that’s a thing that exists

And isn’t that amazing, a conciously constructed language having native speakers is just kind of amazing. So much of English is legacy cruft that has accumulated organically since it seperated from Old English, and so much of Old English was likewise accumulated from its antecedents. A language, any language with a clear dilineation has an opportunity to start with a clean slate that is informed but not slaved to the past. Things like vowel orders can be made as rules without having more exceptions than complying words. Brilliant.

GreyEyedGhost 5d ago

Yes, Esperanto has many advantages of a manufactured language, but I think there are only something like 2 million speakers worldwide. If someone wanted to dip their toes into it, Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series has Esperanto sprinkled throughout it, and has been translated into Esperanto. He was a fan. You certainly won’t learn it reading his (English) books, but the structure is very recognizable.

Probably the coolest thing since I started learning it is some of the weird places it turns up

If you read the comic series Saga, the “blue” language is Esperanto

It shows up in the background of some movies and such as a generic “foreign” language

The watch brand Movado is an Esperanto word (movement)

I first heard of it thanks to Red Dwarf if that counts for anything.

algernon 5d ago

Hungarian: “A nap végén kérlek pakoljátok egymásra a székeket.” (Rough translation back to English: “At the end of the day, I ask you (informal) to stack the chairs on top of each other”).

Same thing, but more formal: “A nap végén kérjük pakolják egymásra a székeket.” (~English: “At the end of the day, we ask you (formatl) to stack the chairs on top of each other”).

In an even more formal / authoritative way: “A nap végén kéretik a székeket egymásra pakolni.” (back to English: “At the end of the day, chairs shall be stacked on top of each other”)

Köszönöm

It’s almost a suggestion more than a direct request so the first one sounds like what I will use. I really appreciate the context.