tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Jul 12 09:04:24 1997

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Re: KLBC:Book 1

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997 19:35:33 -0700 (PDT)  William Cody 
<[email protected]> wrote:

...
> Thanks!! (Has anyone noticed it's easier to translate Klingon into English
> than English to Klingon?)

I'll leave the grammatical part to the BG, but as a former BG I 
feel compelled to respond to this last comment. The only reason 
you consider it easier to go from Klingon to English than the 
other way is that you've been speaking English for many years 
and have learned how to express a very wide range of thoughts 
using its grammar and vocabulary.

You have not yet learned the Klingon tools for expressing 
thought very well. Your handicap in going from English to 
Klingon is that you are drawn to use the same or similar 
grammatical construction in Klingon as the English sentence that 
you wish to translate. Often that presses you towards using the 
wrong tool, and the translation process feels very awkward and 
often unsatisfying. A lag bolt, for example is very unsatisfying 
to insert into a plank with a hammer. A nail is equally 
unsatisfying when one tries to drive it in with a screw driver.

As an example, you'd probably be overtaxed if you tried to 
translate, "I remember how tall you were when you were a boy."

Tried it yet? Okay, here's my version:

loDHom SoHDI' bIjenqu' 'e' vIqaw.

It's not the same grammatical construction, but it expresses the 
same thought. That's the key to good translation skills. I don't 
have to translate "how tall you were" at all. I just have to 
describe how tall you were. And there is no word for "tall", so 
the functional equivalent is "high". If you don't like {jen} for 
"tall", you can be more explicit with:

loDHom SoHDI' jenqu'meH bItIn 'e' vIqaw.

In order that you were very high (toward the goal that you were 
very high), you were big. That fairly clearly expresses 
tallness.

As you extract meaning from a Klingon sentence, it becomes very 
easy for you to express that meaning in English. I suspect that 
you will even drop the suggested grammar in English from time to 
time in order to more clearly express the thought that you come 
to recognize as you translate it into English. That's how 
{bIje'be'chugh vaj bIHegh!} becomes "Buy or die!"

You will discover that while translating written text from 
Klingon to English is easier, speaking in real time, the 
opposite will be true. It is easier to say something in Klingon 
than it is to recognize what someone just said in Klingon 
(though speaking in Klingon is initially quite difficult). 
That's because you'll find that you don't have the readily 
accessible vocabulary to translate while you listen, and you 
lack the short-term memory to access the words you heard at the 
beginning of the sentence once you get a grip on the words at 
the end of the sentence. You can't just look to your left to 
remind yourself.

Reading Klingon is initially easier than writing Klingon, which 
is initially easier than speaking Klingon, which is initially 
easier than hearing Klingon. Given enough exposure, however, you 
will be able to do it all well.

charghwI'

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