[NTLK] Followup - Spanish translation of pda-soft: Looking for help

[Bob Adamson]

Christian,

Here, here!!!

Bob Adamson


On Sep 29, 2010, at 7:23 PM, Lord Groundhog wrote:

> ~~~ On 2010/09/29 21:58, Frank Gruendel at newtontalk at pda-soft.de wrote ~~~
> 
>> James answered...
>> 
>>> I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that, for Mr. Gruendel, good
>>> enough....probably
>> isn't good enough. :)
>> 
>> Hmm, smart thinking. What on earth did you conclude THAT from? It's true,
>> though...
>> 
>> ... 
> 
> I wasn't going to get mixed up in this conversation, but this is becoming
> painful so here I am.  Let's drop the euphemism "good enough" and the
> self-mocking "perfectionism" and say what we mean here:  excellence.  And
> let's stop apologizing for it.  Excellence is worth achieving and worth
> defending without embarrassment.  And the fact that Frank wants to achieve
> excellence is something to be encouraged.   :-)
> 
> The one thing that hasn't been mentioned specifically although it's been
> hinted at is that Spanish, like most (all?) languages, is idiomatic.  Idioms
> don't translate literally without risking a certain amount of unintentional
> humour or just plain nonsense.  Even if a web-translator tells you the
> literal meaning of a phrase, can you be sure it always will tell you what
> that phrase conversationally?  And if it doesn't you won't necessarily
> realize it because if you knew the language that well you wouldn't need the
> translator would you?  Frank is right to hold out for human translation,
> preferably by a native speaker or someone bringing more than book-Spanish to
> the party.  
> 
> But to follow Frank's excellent example by not deviating from the subject, I
> want to applaud him for wanting to pursue excellence.  We all prefer
> excellence to mediocrity or just "good enough".   After all, excellence is
> what set the Newton apart from everything else on the market when it came
> out, and arguably, the Newton's lasting appeal is because the inbuilt
> excellence of all those years ago means that it has qualities we can't find
> in anything else.  
> 
> And that's my 2 tiny copper coins-worth in whatever failing currency takes
> your fancy.  ;-)
> 
> 
> 
> Shalom. 
> Christian 
> 
> ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
> 
> “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a Newton.”
>            -- what Arthur C. Clarke meant
> 
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzpdPJ7Zr4
> (With thanks to Chod Lang)
> http://tinyurl.com/29y2dl
> http://www.diyplanner.com/node/3942
> 
> 
> ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
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> 
> 
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Bob Adamson
bobadamson at mac.com