tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 20 08:35:00 2003
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Re: Re: SIv
- From: "christoph.pichlmann" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Re: SIv
- Date: 20 Feb 2003 15:42:48 +0100
>From: "Sangqar (Sean Healy)" <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: SIv
> tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh 'e' vISIv "I wonder if you speak Klingon"
> (vISIv "I wonder it")
>The fourth example is weird from an English translation point of view,
but
>it falls right in line in Klingon.
>In English, this means something like "I'm surprised that you
>speak Klingon" or "I don't understand how it can be that you speak
>Klingon," but this is not what the Klingon sentence means. The Klingon
>sentence means something more like "I am curious about whether you
speak
>Klingon." The clumsiness here is the English, not the Klingon.
I always thought that the "I wonder if" construction in english is
perfectly correct. Or did I misunderstand something?
(I know that this construction would make no sense in german, if
literally translated, but for english, it seems alright to me.)
Actually, to me the english sentence makes more sense than the klingon
one. Shouldn t it mean that the speaker is surprised that the other one
can klingon?