Learn to love others; and love always. Love: that’s what sets us apart from the crowd.
Thank you my good teachers!!!
Linguistics Software
It would be good to keep track of linguistics software and to realize how this field can be expanded with new ideas.
A recent link I have come across to is:
Linguist List | Web Resource Listings
and of course, the good old Google search:
Linguistics Software Search
Translating ideas
When reading through the exam material, I came to the point where Vinary and Darbelnet’s model of translation was explained (Jeremy Munday: 2001: 56-59) Interestingly enough Vinary and Darbelnet list five steps for the translator to follow in moving from Source Text to Target Text, their first item being “identifying the units of translation”. It is next explained that “as far as the ‘unit of translation’ is concerned, the authors reject the individual word. They consider the unit of translation to be a combination of a lexicological unit and a unit of thought and define it (1995: 21) as: ‘the smallest segment of the utterance whose signs are linked in such a way that they should not be translated individually.”
Now to me, what the authors are suggesting is translation of “smallest units of ideas.” Again, to me this seems very important that a computer program would be able to deal with ideas and recognize smallest units of ideas in a text in order to provide better translations.
Fruits! Yummy!
This time of year in the middle east region, especially in Iran and Afghanistan, there are tons of quality organic fruits everywhere in the shops. The fruits are truly juicy and very diverse in shape and type. You have to taste them to believe what heaven means!
A few photos taken at home:
Cherries گیلاس
Cherries,Grapes,Apricots زردآلو، انگور، گوجه سبز، گیلاس
Cherries گیلاس
Grape انگور
Prunus & Apricots گوجه سبز، زردآلو
Google Translator lacks definitions for a lot of words!!
There was a period when I thought Google Translator is the most comprehensive online translation service compared to other similar online systems. Although this is true when comparing it with other “online services”, I am lucky to realize it lacks listing a whole group of words when it comes to translating from English to Farsi. I’m taking a “morphology” course this semester where the students are requested to find Persian meanings to English words containing Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
When trying to utilize Google Translator to find meanings for this whole list of new words that pop-up throughout the course, I see roughly-speaking that over 70 percent of the words are not defined in Google Translator. The translator could be improved a lot and to me, this is an important conclusion!
Translation, suddenly, opens new lines of thought!
It’s funny, I don’t feel a bit of difference when reading a line of English twice or three times. But as soon as I start translating the same sentence in to Farsi and write my translation down, it seems like I see a totally new dimension of meanings hidden in what the original sentence meant to be!! I guess we should be more considerate of what sentences can mean and what messages they are carrying which don’t come to mind on first impression but become more colorful through cultural filtration!
Shattered Glass
A thought came to me a few moments ago, when pouring myself a hot glass of tea. What happens when there is hot tea in a glass and you suddenly dip the whole thing in ice? Well, I suppose the glass will shatter into pieces… it cannot hold being hot while being in total coldness. I guess the human soul is the same, philosophically speaking. Consider a baby! If there is hot and cold reactions coming down on him both at the same time, the soul will shatter, the soul will be confused, it will lose the direction it is intending to go. I wish we could create unity in the things that are around on us, either this way or that way. We cause confusion and break things when everything is different and all mixed up! Further more, I wish that we could stand the confusion when it is caused! I guess I can say, it is interesting how the human soul follows natural principles, more interesting still that it can overcome the deficiencies in these principles through awareness and determination and reach higher levels of truth and wisdom. 