Hi Chris,
thank you for your answer.
I didn't expected it. Do you think the text could have been written by a
native speaker of English?
The English woman was a person I knew and she was really angry about the
text in the website and phoned me just to complain about it!
This happens a few years ago. Recently an Italian person I know, that says
to know English well, visiting the web site said the same of the first lady
(not the wife of a prime minister).
So I was really sure about that, but I was a little bit disappointed for not
being able to understand were so 'orrible' mistakes were.
Despite my English is not perfect (as you can read), I am usually able to
unterstand if an English text is 'orrible'.
Now I'm a little bit worried about the text I personally translated from
Italian.
If you link the banner on the top (don't worry, despite it has changing
images it is not advertising :) ), you can find a story I wrote about the
town I live in, Martina Franca.
When I said the English woman that she was wrong: the website with my
translation is onother one, she red it, phoned me and said: "this is ok!".
Now I'm pretty sure that, as a matter of fact, my translation is worse that
the first one.
I'm only wondering why she was so angry about a text that could be written
by a native speaker of English (or an Italian teacher of English, maybe(?))
and said that the text translated by an Italian person (so not as good as
the first one) was Ok.
Maybe, she understood it was American English and she was a little bit
gelous about it, as she English.
What do tou think?
bye
--
Giuseppe
"Chris Croughton" <chris@keristor.net> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:slrnd6n6hs.1o4.chris@ccserver.keris.net...
> On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 11:58:22 GMT, Giuseppe Dini
> <dinizz@libero.it> wrote:
>
> > I need a little help.
> > A few years ago I collected pictures and text from a brochure and made
up a
> > web site about odd houses, typical of the place I live in, called
"trulli".
> > An English woman after visiting the site told me that the English in it
is
> > orrible.
> > I was surprised because I thought the translation on the brochure was
> > accurate.
> > Can someone help me writing down a list of the major mistakes in it?
>
> There are no really major mistakes. The sentences are short and choppy
> (which is the way MS Word "grammar checker" likes them, admittedly), and
> I'm not sure about the "unmercifully sweet" people (I'd have thought
> that being sweet one would be merciful!).
>
> 'Roofs' is correct but most English people I know would use 'rooves' (it's
a
> disputed plural, like hoofs/hooves; I gather that the American plural is
> always 'roofs'). I've normally seen 'tepee' spelt 'teepee' but that's
> an imported word anyway.
>
> Why not ask her what she thought was 'orrible'?
>
> > The link is the following:
> >
> > http://www.geocities.com/trullihouses
>
> I've seen worse from native speakers of English (and American)...
>
> Chris C
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