tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jul 05 11:28:22 2000

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

RE: A little expression translated. (KLBC)



jatlh Paul:
 
>>> I was thinking about the expression 'What
>>> does not kill me, makes me stronger.' and
>>> thought it may be suitable for Klingons so I
>>> decided to try to translate it.
>>> 
>>> My first try was {muHoSmoH muHoHbe'chugh},
>>> "If it does not kill me, it makes me
>>> stronger".
>> 
>> maj.

> Thanks. I'll keep this one I think. I was 
> thinking though, how much difference is
> there between {muHoSmoH} 'cause me to be
> strong' and {muHoSchoH} 'change me to be
> strong' (both assuming there is more sentence
> as in my different attempts in the original
> post). 

Careful - without the <-moH>, there's nothing "causing" anything.
<muHoSchoH> doesn't mean anything, since <HoS> is not a verb that can take
an object. You could say <muHoSchoHmoH>, I suppose - "It causes me to become
strong", but I don't think that's any better. That implies a change in state
- you weren't strong before, but you are now.

> Is it just a matter of what the type of 
> sentence demands or is there a qualitative
> difference? How close is this to 'make me
> stronger'? In particular, is there even a way
> to say that I'm becomming *stronger* as
> opposed to just strong?

I just don't think it makes a difference.

>> KLBC Dalo'mo' quSDaq bIba' :) Look in KGT at the 
>> idioms section if you don't understand this.

> You think I marked it KLBC because it was
> such a simple thing to translate, right? 
> Well, not for me. I'm not especially
> good at tlhIngan Hol but I try to learn. I
> didn't want to embarrass myself by making a
> beginners misstake in an non-KLBC post. As it
> turns out I didn't but I couldn't know that.

My comment was in response to your comment "Corrections and suggestions are
welcome.". Since you used a KLBC, you obviously invited corrections and
suggestions, at least from me.


pagh
Beginners' Grammarian


Back to archive top level