go figure
A: Go ....... (inaudible)
B: Go where?
A: Go figure
B: What figure?
A: grrr...
My point is "go figure" is an idiomatic expression in English which has a meaning as a whole not predictable from its individual parts, and which would be interesting to see how to translate it. I thought of that because 10 minutes ago I was bored and decided to spend some time playing around online. So I got into Google language tools and started translating my blog page into different languages to see how it would look like. I have to say seeing my blog in Chinese is very.. impressive. Anyway, I was reading my blog in Spanish when I started paying attention to the translation of "go figure" that I wrote in yesterday's long post. So, the translations were as follows:
"Va la figura" (Spanish/Italian)
"Disparaissent la figure" (French)
"Gehen Abbildung" (German)
Now, in Spanish (and Italian) that doesn't make any sense because it's just the literal translation of the expression, and, as far as I remember French, this is no good either (and an interesting choice of verb, I might add). And although I have no idea what the German one says, it just can't be right :) This is of course typical of any automatic translation system, idiomatic expressions like that always remain a problem. So what we need is an equivalent expression of "go figure" that would convey the same meaning in these languages. Actually, when I come to think of it, it's rather hard too to find an Arabic equivalent for this expression. Ideas, anyone, any language?
p.s.
just read about this new release The Handbook of Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents. So what exactly do bloggers and cyber-dissidents have in common (besides the web thing)? actually, what is a cyber-dissident?
Mai
B: Go where?
A: Go figure
B: What figure?
A: grrr...
My point is "go figure" is an idiomatic expression in English which has a meaning as a whole not predictable from its individual parts, and which would be interesting to see how to translate it. I thought of that because 10 minutes ago I was bored and decided to spend some time playing around online. So I got into Google language tools and started translating my blog page into different languages to see how it would look like. I have to say seeing my blog in Chinese is very.. impressive. Anyway, I was reading my blog in Spanish when I started paying attention to the translation of "go figure" that I wrote in yesterday's long post. So, the translations were as follows:
"Va la figura" (Spanish/Italian)
"Disparaissent la figure" (French)
"Gehen Abbildung" (German)
Now, in Spanish (and Italian) that doesn't make any sense because it's just the literal translation of the expression, and, as far as I remember French, this is no good either (and an interesting choice of verb, I might add). And although I have no idea what the German one says, it just can't be right :) This is of course typical of any automatic translation system, idiomatic expressions like that always remain a problem. So what we need is an equivalent expression of "go figure" that would convey the same meaning in these languages. Actually, when I come to think of it, it's rather hard too to find an Arabic equivalent for this expression. Ideas, anyone, any language?
p.s.
just read about this new release The Handbook of Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents. So what exactly do bloggers and cyber-dissidents have in common (besides the web thing)? actually, what is a cyber-dissident?
Mai
posted by Mai at 11:48 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Mai,
The French movie Va Savoir was translated into English as 'go figure'. It's obviously not identical but a relatively close idiom. I reckon 'go figure' means something like 'go (away) and think about that for a while'. People used to say 'work that one out' but I don't think they do much any more (I remember it in a punk rock song but can't remember which one).
B-)
Post a Comment
<< Home