[lojban-beginners] Re: Constructive comments requested.

["Turniansky, Michael" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>]

  Don't get me wrong.  I agree that Alice is no starter text (my Terry
the Tiger is better in that regard, and to a lesser extent, my
Berenstain Bears translation).  I was comparing Alice to Harry Potter,
and Artemis Fowler which Colin thought would be better suited, and I say
they have exactly the same problems as Alice, if not moreso.

                    --gy


-----Original Message-----
From: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org
[mailto:lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org] On Behalf Of Alex Martini
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 5:57 PM
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Constructive comments requested.

On Apr 20, 2007, at 2:34 PM, Turniansky, Michael wrote:

>   Gee, *I* read Alice in Wonderland as a child.  It was made for
> children.  It's full of adventure.  It made me wonder what was coming
> next.  How is not a children's book?  (And for the record, is much
> shorter then Harry Potter, Artemis, Fowler, etc. that Colin seems to
> prefer).
>
>              --gejyspa

Well, from my point of view, the Lojban translation is just too darn  
hard to read. I can't get through the first paragraph without  
consulting jbovlaste a dozen times, and then dipping back into CLL  
because I don't understand the cmavo that the translator's using.

A children's book (or a beginner's book) needs to have just enough  
challenge to send me hunting for the dictionary every so often, but  
the majority of the vocab should be already within reach. This was my  
frustration that motivated me to start writing the Lojban Reader  
( http://umich.edu/~alexjm/reader0.html ) although I haven't had the  
time/motivation to work on it recently.

In my view, Alice in Wonderland in it's Lojban version, is really  
more like adult books -- once you understand how to read the language  
well enough do it without thinking much there's a lot of great story  
to be told. But if you're reading it in jbofi'e line-by-line  
translation anyhow, you're not really getting much.

mu'o mi'e .aleks.