From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Thu Aug 20 07:18:12 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:18:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Me8Sx-0001BB-2I for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:18:11 -0700 Received: from mail-gx0-f219.google.com ([209.85.217.219]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Me8Sq-0000zE-Nn for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:18:10 -0700 Received: by gxk19 with SMTP id 19so6427227gxk.0 for ; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:17:58 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=bT503crcCq30kIWbLl5Bku3MpcfIzHWzeBaIx8m5qhY=; b=Ma4MjnuAFeYzrvAgE2vezesdqQ1/W5Rax5eRGQcM6QvYouWreETvvWgUnys1FukSTm h0/hDZ7VQO2Pi7rvXoIE1LjGt5fTzXqJD0eWhZEFAHQ+8Z+2OCkZ2BFP2fxZOmASr3Er ci9CHTTVyDHFjJCL6zAf7hjD4QGZLkR+5kpnQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=elwLRgrdFw7yTyAHOGDUrByb/P4dWqRzx0Off03BAXf1wO2eJNxeySq/3F9pqTj2Rq TD6EaWju1ivhlOBJgwJ9ZSgGUnautKSKToUIhj/560rDdwNAb1S77EWqdJvPhk9S+TOU f1/5hiVpn4mkAOEeOJDdb7t+T4mkj+hgWkGMs= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.150.172.3 with SMTP id u3mr12716207ybe.328.1250777877545; Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:17:57 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <8900cc410908200614l611200c5i5eb385ddd728adf8@mail.gmail.com> References: <8900cc410908200614l611200c5i5eb385ddd728adf8@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:17:57 -0400 Message-ID: <96f789a60908200717o752c9ba3wc762a7dc77b175de@mail.gmail.com> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Translate phrase from the Portal song From: Michael Turniansky To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-archive-position: 2049 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mturniansky@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 9:14 AM, Dmitry Shintyakov wrote: > coi rodo mi'e dmitris .i mi ze'u cnino jbocli > Hello everybody, I am Dmitry, and I am probably the oldest Lojban beginner here. > > I was trying to translate a phrase from the Portal game song: "There's > no sense crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying till you > run out of cake". > > Here is the result of an almost hour of extensive dictionary search > and reading the CLL: > > na krinu lonu klaku badri le ro selsre > .i ko tolsti lonu troci ca'o lonu ralte le nabrkeiki > > There is what I don't like in this translation: > - "le ro selsre" is "all mistakes", not "every". Maybe it would be > better to say something like "every time you make a mistake", but how? > - "selsre" or "nulsre", what would be better for the "mistake"? > - I failed to find an adequate translation for the "cake". Maybe, > cilmo titla bo nanba (cimtitnanba)? Are there any better translations? > Also, is "nabrkeiki" a valid fu'ivla? > - The whole sentence "keep on trying till you run out of cake", as far > as I understand it correctly, means something like "Do not stop the > process of trying, until you meet the event of {there is no cake}", > and my translation is quite different from it. > > Any suggestions or corrections? > Actually, this is a pretty good translation, although it isn't exactly the way I'd translate it. Actually ro selsre does mean "each mistake". "ro" refers to the members of that class individually. But If you did want to say every time a mistake is made, then yes, you could use "ro lo nu srera kei" (equivalenty, ro nunsre (which is what I assume you meant rather than "nulsre" which means something making a neutral mistake (not too bad, not too good?)). "selsre" is the right word to use when you are focusing on what the actual mistaken was, which you are doing here. Since it's already an event, no further action is required. "nunsre" is approximately equivalent, but since we already have the event in the x2 piece, why not use it? "titnanba" is basically used for any pastry (cake, cookie, donut, etc.), but there is nothing wrong with nabrkeiki. It is a valid fu'ivla. As far as "keep on trying till you run out of cake", try "ko ru'i troci va'o lo za'i le nabrkeiki cu zvati" (You! continuously try under conditions of the cake existing") --gejyspa