tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 03 22:51:10 2003

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oops, missed this one

Here's one I meant to respond to, and it somehow slipped
between the cracks.  I don't remember the original subject
or who posted this:

> Ok, that makes sense now.
> trying to wrap my mind around the concepts.
> 
> 
> Concepts around    my mind   trying to wrap
> Ideas    surround  my mind   trying [to] grasp
> 
> qechmey  Dech      yabwIj    nIDtaH  'uch
> 
> I don't know what to do with the [to] is it implied?

First off, you're being WAY too literal here.  "wrapping
your mind around something" is an English idiom, there's
no especial reason to suppose that Klingon does the same
thing.  In particular, if you went up to a Klingon and
started talking about grasping ideas surrounding your mind,
he'd probably think you were doing battle with an energy
being or some such.  Assuming he didn't just think you
were insane.

So let's try expressing it more directly.  What you're REALLY
trying to do is get your mind to understand the concepts.
So let's work with that:

We'll start with the vocabulary.  qechmey is good for concepts/ideas.
yabwIj is certainly "my mind".  nIDtaH is certainly "trying".
"understand" is, of course, yaj.  Since we're not "wrapping" or
"grasping" anything ('uch is almost certainly to physically hold
something, not "grasp" in the sense of "grasp a concept/understand")
what we're really trying to do is bring it about that our mind
understands the concepts.  We want to cause it to happen.  Well,
"to cause to happen" is qaSmoH.

So how do we put the pieces together?  Well, it turns out you've
picked a somewhat complex sentence to try to translate.  With
complex sentences, it is usually best to start simple, and then
build it up.

The simplest part is the state we are trying to achieve:  "My mind
understands the concepts."  This is a straightforward enough sentence
in Klingon:

qechmey yaj yabwIj	"My mind understands the concepts."

Now we want to add the idea of causing it to happen.  What do we
want to cause to happen?  That whole thing we just said, my mind
understanding the concepts.  In Klingon, this calls for a construction
called "sentence as object" and requires the use of the special
pronoun 'e'.  You should review the section on "sentence as object"
in the sentence structure chapter of TKD (I'd cite the page and all,
but I don't have my dictionary here in New Jersey).  The basic idea
is that 'e' refers to the entire sentence that just preceded, and might
be translated as "all of that/what I just said".  Anyway, if we apply
the rules given there, what we get is:

qechmey yaj yabwIj 'e' vIqaSmoH

	"I cause it to happen that my mind understands the concepts."

			or

	"I make my mind understand the concepts."

*Literally*, in Klingon, this is actually two sentences:

	"My mind understands the concepts.  I cause that to happen."


Now finally, we add the part about "trying to".  What are we trying to
do?  Again, the *whole thing* that we just expressed.  Yep, it's
sentence-as-object *again*.  So we get:

qechmey yaj yabwIj 'e' vIqaSmoH 'e' vInIDtaH

    "I'm trying to cause it to happen that my mind understands the concepts."

		or

    "I'm trying to make my mind understand the concepts."

This is now actually, literally, *three* sentences in Klingon, and literally
translates as:

"My mind understands the concepts.  I cause that to happen.  I'm 
    attempting that."

Hope this helped!

		--Captain Krankor

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