Translating Fun!

[pete]

Hi. I'm Pete. I speak American. In high school and college, I took Latin. That does help me with Romantic languages (i.e. those based on Latin). I have a passing familiarity with French and Spanish and can only get myself into trouble in Japanese and German.

However, there's a toy called Google Translate.

A reader of my website saw my plea to see a copy of the original patent for the Claude Laurent flute and he sent me one. It's in French:

236.
21 novembre 1806.
BREVET D'INVENTION DE CINQ ANS,
Pour une flûte en cristal,
Au sieur Laurent, horloger à Paris.

Après avoir cerché long-temps les moyens de remédier à l'altération qu'éprovent les flûtes dans leurs divers tons, par l'influence des variations hygrométriques, et désirant en même temps donner aux sons de cet instrument une netteté et une pureté parfaite, j'ai trouvé, dit l'auteur, dans le cristal, une matiére propre à donner aux sons la douceur et la pureté, aux tons l'inaltérabilité, et à l'instrument l'agrément et la facilité que je désirais.

On sait que tous les instrumens en bois ou en ivoire se gonflent par l'humidité atmosphérique, ou par celle quo produit le soufle du musicien, et qu'ils se dessèchent, quelquefois se fendent, lorsque, dans un temps sec, on est long-temps sans en faire usage. Le cristal, au contraire, impassible aux effets de l'humidité, conserve toujours ses mèmes dimensions, et joint à son inaltérabilité une compacité élastique qui rend l'instrument plus sonore et plus facile.

Le travail de cette matière des difficultés qu'il a fallu surmonter, a mème trouvé le moyen de rendre encore l'instrument plus parfait dans son exécution.

On a construit plusieurs de ces instrumens, composés de quatre tubes, faciles à monter et à démonter, par des emboitures en argent qui ne prennent rien sur la solidité, puisque les extrémits qui y sont reçues ne sont amincies.

La forme de ces flûte ne diffère en rien de celles établies par les meilleurs facteurs.

Deux seuls tubes rechange suffiront à l'usage: celui du haut n'a presque jamais besoin d'ètre changé.

Les clefs sont artistement et solidement adaptées à l'instrument par de petites vis à écrous; leurs charnières, dont les charnons sont d'acier trempé et poli, traversés par une vis de méme matiére, font leur service avec aisance, et ne peuvent jamais s'user sensiblement. Les ressorts en sont plus prolongés que dans les flûtes ordinaires, pour leur donner plus d'élasticité et les empécher de se rompre.

I do have a partial translation from another document on my website, so I have a general idea of what the point of all that was (yes, I hand-copied it). However, here's the Google Translate version:

236.
November 21, 1806.
PATENT FOR FIVE YEARS
For a crystal flute,
To Mr. Lawrence, a watchmaker in Paris.

After a long time are looking for ways to remedy the damage qu'éprovent flutes in their various shades, by the influence of changes in humidity, and wishing at the same time give to the sounds of this instrument clarity and perfect purity, I found, says the author, in the crystal, a material calculated to give the sounds soft, pure, toned inalterability, and instrument certification and ease that I wanted.

We know that all instruments made of wood or ivory swell by atmospheric moisture, or quo that produced the breath of the musician, and they dry out, sometimes crack when, in dry weather, it is long time without using it. The crystal, however, impassive to the effects of humidity, still retains its same size and attached to an unaltered elastic compactness makes the instrument sound more and easier.

The work of this matter the difficulties he had to be overcome, even found a way to make the instrument even more perfect in its execution.

We have built several of these instruments, consisting of four tubes, easy to assemble and disassemble, with silver sockets that do nothing about the strength, since the ends that are received are thinned.

The shape of the flute is no different from those established by the best factors.

Only two spare tubes will be sufficient to use: the top one almost never needs to be changed.

The keys are artistically and well adapted to the instrument by small screws to nuts, and their hinges, whose knuckles are hardened and polished, through which a screw of the same material, make their service with ease, and can never wear significantly. The springs are more prolonged than in the ordinary flutes, to give them more elasticity and prevent them from breaking.

In other words, somewhat understandable, but it still looks like it was translated into English by blind monkeys from an extinct Micronesian dialect. So, I transliterate:

236
November 21, 1806.
PATENT FOR FIVE YEARS
For a crystal flute,
To Mr. Laurent, a watchmaker in Paris.

For a long time, people have been looking for a way to improve the flute, in their various pitches, so they wouldn't be affected by changes in humidity, and, at the same time, to have the flute produce a more clear and perfect tone. I, the author of this patent, have found that crystal is an easy to work with material that produced an soft and pure tone unaffected by humidity.

We know that all instruments made of wood or ivory swell with humidity or the musician's breath. In dry weather, or after a long period of disuse, a wood or ivory instrument may crack. The difficulties involved in working with wood and/or ivory had to be overcome to create a more perfect instrument. Crystal, however is impervious to the effects of humidity and retains its size and shape, making the instrument sound better and making it easier to play.

I have built several of these instruments in a compact form, consisting of an easy to assemble and disassemble four tubes with silver sockets at the ends to strengthen them, as the sockets are necessarily thinner. (The head joint almost never needs to be changed, to alter the flute's pitch. Changing the bottom two joints is generally sufficient.) The resulting shape of the flute, however, is no different than traditional high-quality models.

The artistic keywork is affixed to the instrument with small screws and nuts. Hardened and polished hinges with similar screws make the keywork much easier to use and never wear down significantly. The springs are longer than traditional flutes, to give them more elasticity and prevent breakage.

Now, I do prefer the translation of part of this patent from Dayton C. Miller, because it has a flowing quality that was prevalent in writing up until, say, WWII. I do get a bit of a kick from my transliteration, too. Note that I had to shift some things around to convey the correct meaning. The other fun thing was that, while I was writing the French text, I was thinking things like, "Oooh. 'Argent.' I know that one. It's 'silver.'"

So, if you don't hear from me in a few days, assume I'm trying to translate something ....

 

[Groovekiller]

Go with Dayton Miller. Back in his day, people knew how to do research.

 

[pete]

Go with Dayton Miller. Back in his day, people knew how to do research.

I am. Unfortunately, he only translated a portion of the patent.

As said, at least it was an interesting exercise!

 

[SOTSDO]

I have tried applying Google Translate to a French text, but have found that the idiomatic part of the conversion took way too long for my patience. I'd love to use it for Japanese (I have six volumes of the Germanic style Japanese official history of World War II), but getting the text into the computer is the greatest problem there.

I would type the Japanese text in myself except that I never bothered to learn the kantakana around which Japanese typing is constructed, so no luck there.

Some day...

 

[pete]

> getting the text into the computer is the greatest problem there.
A good sheet-feed scanner and good OCR software. The only problem, then, would be that you have to take the pages out of the books.

 

[SOTSDO]

Japanese kana don't scan very well - we've already tried that approach. Plus, you would have to follow the path: original text > scan of original text > conversion to Japanese character set via OCR > feed to Google Translate > "deidiomize" the result.

The end result was not pleasant - not pleasant at all...

 

[pete]

Japanese kana don't scan very well - we've already tried that approach. Plus, you would have to follow the path: original text > scan of original text > conversion to Japanese character set via OCR > feed to Google Translate > "deidiomize" the result.

The end result was not pleasant - not pleasant at all...

> "deidiomize"
I may have learned a new word. I understand "idiomize" has something to do with translation by machine (the process thereof, I think), but it's not in Merriam-Webster. And I don't want to pay for a subscription to the OED online. Hey, the print OED was really kewl. It's like the New Langwill's Index for vocab geeks.

In any event, you might not have much of a problem anymore. Get a Japanese version of the OCR software. Or look for a service. Mmm. Firing up Google. OK. Here ya go.

Anyhow, somewhat on-topic, I've watched some of Hell Girl, an anime. The titular character's got a nice little catch phrase. The fun thing is how many translations there are of it. Take a look at the Wikiquote page for three different translations (I prefer the first of these choices). Note that I'm not responsible if you use "遍... 死んで見る?" as your signature line for your work e-mails .

Maybe I'll start doing a word-of-the-day or something. Word-of-the-day titles? Hmmm.