Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

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PfifltriggPi
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby PfifltriggPi » Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:35 pm

Том мусить обрати поміж честю та смертю.
Tom must choose between honor and death.
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PfifltriggPi
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby PfifltriggPi » Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:24 pm

Вона пішла від нас повільно.
She got away from us by walking slowly.
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Please correct my errors in any tongue.

"Зброя - слово." - Леся Українка

guyome
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby guyome » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:44 pm

The monkey is jealous.
The learned doctor cured the sick man and the sick woman.
A white cow amidst the green grass of Holland.
The flag of Malta is an old flag.
The vinegar is sour.
Gozitan cheese is good.
The major is poor and old.
Sour wine becomes vinegar.

(From Exercise 2 in J. Aquilina's Teach Yourself Maltese)
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Carl
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby Carl » Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:18 pm

The Monty Python sketch and quotes from Three Men on the Bummel remind me there's a whole series of phrase books devoted to ridiculous conversations, the Wicked series. The ones I've examined give silly conversations rendered with, as far as I've ascertained, accurate translations. Here's a shot from the back cover of Wicked German:
Screen Shot 2020-11-25 at 10.09.56 AM.png
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urubu
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby urubu » Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:55 pm

Nibuds kömons suvo lü stopöp su lubel – tü minuts degtel.
Nek spidon tope, do nibuds binons mödiks.


Busse kommen oft zu der Haltestelle auf dem Hügel – alle zwölf Minuten einer.
Niemand will allzu rasch an diesen Ort gelangen, aber die Busse dahin sind zahlreich.

From: Ralph Midgley Volapük in Action (quote from: Clemens Setz, Die Bienen und das Unsichtbare, p. 7)
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:56 pm

Maybe it's just me, but there's something about these sentences that sounds so old-fashioned and overly formal. My copy of the "Meisterschafts-System" was published in 1885.

-Ich möchte gern morgen früh einige Einkäufe machen und würde Ihnen sehr verbunden sein, wenn Sie mir den Gefallen thäten, mir die Namen der besten hiesigen Firmen aufzuschreiben.

-Ich bin Ihnen sehr verbunden für Ihre gütige Nachfrage; augenblicklich aber gehen die Geschäfte überall schlecht.

-Was halten Sie von den seidenen Mänteln, welche wir von unserem Agenten in Paris erhalten haben?
-Einege derselben sind sehr geschmackvoll, aber ich finde nicht, dass sie hübsch sind.
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby kelvin921019 » Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:56 am

Me aburro en este club nudista
I get bored in this nudist club

(Lesson 87 of Assimil Spanish with ease)
The day I use this sentence will be the day I get beaten up in a Spanish nudist club
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Querneus
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby Querneus » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:11 am

Just saw this on Reverso Context Arabic:
Turning my school of table tennis into a den of thieves.
محولا مدرستي لتنس الطاولة إلى وكر من اللصوص
muḥawwilan madrasat-ii li-tinis aṭ-ṭaawila(ti) ’ilā wakri mina l-luṣuuṣ...

Sounds like something that'd be taken out of the subs of a table tennis anime or something.
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Querneus
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby Querneus » Sun Dec 26, 2021 8:44 am

I'd rather be a cat:
بیشتر دوست دارم (ترجیح می‌دهم) یک گربه باشم

Yousef, Saeed. 2014. Intermediate Persian: A Grammar and Workbook. page 40
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Re: Let's share highly specific and unhelpful example sentences

Postby Iversen » Sun Dec 26, 2021 11:32 am

I don't use textbooks much, but nevertheless own a few - mostly in somewhat oldish editions. The following are from the exercises in Teach Yourself Portuguese from 1969 (5. edition):

p.73: My trunk is the heaviest on the train ---> A minha mala é o mais pesado do comboio
p.81: Notei que as quatro grandes pistas de aterragem se cruzavam precisemente ao centro do aeródromo --> I noticed that the four big runways crossed exactly in the middle of the aerodrome (who designed that airport?)
p.90: What is your brother writing? He is busy helping George with his exercise.----> O que anda/esta á escrever sue irmão? Ocupa-se em ajudar Jorge com o seu exercicio (the teacher should be informed of this)

And referring to some obsolete means of communication:
From "Say it in Danish" (1958): "Will you send [a cablegram]?" ---> Vil De sende et (kabelgram) (I don't even know what it is and I'm born in 53 - and we don't say "De" anymore except to the queen)

And from Teach yourself Modern Greek (from 1962 and therefore with three accents and two aspiration signs, but it could be worse - it could be koiné :shock: ):
(p.139): Μιλοῦσε γιατί ἢθελε ξεκάσει ---> He kept talking because he wanted to forget
Αὒριο ὃταν θα εἶσαι καλά, μ'εὐχαριστεῖς ---> Tomorrow when you are well, you will thank me
Μή θαρρεῖς πώς ντρέπομαι γι'αὐτό ---> Don't think I'm ashamed of this
Εἲχα τις περιπέτειές μου. Νομίζω νά τίς ἔμαθες ---> I've had my adventures. I think you must have heard about them
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