Posted by Kaapuikinaea on March 18, 2008 at 9:04am
I've always hated translation request from people. People wanting to turn an English phrase into Hawaiian. Keep in mind that when they ask for a translation, it's obvious that they don't speak the language. And so if they don't speak it, what good will it do if they have the translation?I've told people time and time again how you cannot always do translation so easily, especially literal translation. It's difficult between languages and even more if you have something like English, an Indo-European language going into Hawaiian, an Austronesian language.Today was a good example which I'll use from now on as an example. My friend showed me a forum knowing how I hate these translations. The request from English into Hawaiian was for "Reach/strive for the stars." I've never heard of "Strive for the Stars" before, but I told that girl that "reaching for the stars" doesn't exist, at least not in the way she intended, but we have something similar with the same meaning. KULIA I KA NUU!Someone replied with "Hele a hana no na hoku." In another forum for language learners I've stressed the importance of learning the culture when learning a language, especially like Hawaiian. People don't listen. So you get these ridiculous translations that really has no meaning in Hawaiian.
"goodboi" showed me the link and I replied to quickly b4 reading the few responses. Someone already replied KULIA I KA NUU, but they said something like, not sure if they hadd the "imagery" of stars. Huh? LOL If I say "reach for the stars", I definitely don't have that in mind. I dunno, maybe b/c when I first heard it, it didn't make sense to me until I knew what it was, so I had that other image...you know, working harder, doing better, etc. Not physically looking at stars and being a lolo trying fo reach um. Does that make sense? lol
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