tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 11 15:06:16 2004

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Re: an answer which is no answer

Alan Anderson ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

SuStel writes:
> Express the concept.

ja' lay'tel SIvten:
>as always, the question is "how?".

'ej reH rap qeS.  qech DaDelmeH, pab DaSovbogh tIlo'.

>my concepts almost always start out in
>english.  translation of that english is my first attempt at "expressing the
>concept".

That explains things perfectly.  Now we know why you seem fixated on
finding "the accepted way" to represent English grammar concepts in
Klingon.  It's because you're trying to translate sentences, rather than
compose them.

Translating from English into Klingon is not an effective way to learn
Klingon.  I believe that statement to be worthy of being repeated:

Translating from English into Klingon is not an effective way to learn Klingon.

What you should try instead is to use the grammatical tools you *do* know.
Don't start with English sentences at all.  Start with simple phrases in
Klingon and build on them.  (It's okay to start with English *words* if you
don't remember the vocabulary.  Looking up words in the dictionary is easy
enough that a computer can do it.  Internalizing the grammar, however,
needs to be done *in* Klingon.)

If you want to translate as a learning exercise, you should be translating
*from* well-written Klingon text.  Doing that will give you the "pattern"
answers you want, by showing you those patterns in real contexts, in a form
suitable for direct use.  Providing such text is one of the reasons for
Qo'noS QonoS.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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