Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 March 16

= March 16 =

is this Romanian?
If so - please give a literal translation - if not, what language is it? thank you

Cvartet cu pian in do minor ?

It's the name of a piano quartet, but - not positive about what language it is in. HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:17, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's Romanian. Literally, "quartet with piano in C minor". Lesgles (talk) 04:17, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I Googled the phrase above, clicked the first link and picked up a virus! You have been warned. Alansplodge (talk) 21:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Need help in Georgian
Just to ward off jokes — it's Georgian language, not an eastern version of Southern American English.

Beneto9 is a native Georgian speaker with less command of English. S/he posted here (note that the request is now at WP:HD) asking for help with translating an article into Georgian; his/her userpage history appears to me to be a case of the user adding the translation on the userpage only to see another user replace it with a deletion tag. Since the user is newly registered both here and at ka:wp, I expect that s/he isn't very familiar with their policies, since the Help Desk post seems to be asking for help in understanding ka:wp policies. Therefore If you read this and you're familiar with Georgian, can you try to find relevant policies at ka:wp and give the user a simple explanation? They have a help desk, but because I know nothing of Georgian, it won't help me; I've searched in vain for an administrators' noticeboard over there. I understand that the user who blanked the userpage has left comments at Beneto's ka:wp talk, but the request for help was placed here after the last comment there, so a simple explanation of their policies (if you can find them) would be appreciated.

Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 03:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If Georgian is similar to russian then Yahoo! Babel Fish may help?--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Georgian is very unlike Russian. -- Hoary (talk) 11:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

'When it comes to wages day'
Translating Val McDermid's The Wire in the Blood, I found the sentences as follow:

'... Seaford's a big village. Favours owed, favours paid.' 'As long as we don't cross the line when it comes to wages day.'

The speaker of the first sentence is a policeman getting compliment from his boss for his good work collecting information, and the speaker of the second sentence is the boss.

I don't understand what the second sentence means. Please help. --Analphil (talk) 06:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * As a non-native, I understand it as "pay day". Yet, he should have said: "wage day" (if not "pay day"). 77.127.219.111 (talk) 07:43, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. A wage (s.) is just a rate of payment (e.g. $25 per hour).  But when one receives payment for a week or a fortnight's work, one receives one's wages (pl.).  I've never heard of "wages day", but it seems a more apt counterpart of "pay day" than "wage day" does.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  07:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Googling the phrase gives me the impression that it might be a Scottish expression.--Rallette (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It might be. The background is East Sussex, but the writer is definitely Scottish. The point is, however, not what wages day means, but what the meaning of the whole sentence is. --Analphil (talk) 12:03, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd guess it refers to the idea of having your finances balanced by wages day, i.e. not spending more than you've earned, not being in debt. It's like a day of reckoning or day of accounting - you can perform favours and receive favours but it should all balance out in the end.  "Cross the line" might refer to going into the red/going into debt, i.e. not balancing the books - "the bottom line" and similar expressions are often used to refer to profits/losses but I can't find examples of "cross the line" in this context. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * It makes sense. Thank you. --Analphil (talk) 12:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't be sure without context, but what occurs to me is that it is about corruption (or rather, avoiding it). I interpret it as "favours owed either way are fine, but when it comes to wages day, i.e. actual money, we must be seen to be absolutely clean, i.e. not cross the line into corruption or the appearance of it". --ColinFine (talk) 12:43, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure I get it myself, but I feel ColinFine may be on the right track here. In the scene, two officers are presenting information to their superior, some of which has been gained illicitly, possibly from a bank in violation of banking secrecy: "A little bird helped us with some commercial credit checking." After the superior makes her remark about "not crossing the line", one of the two officers asks her, "Don't you trust us, ma'am?" to which she responds, "Give me five good reasons why I should." So maybe she's reminding her officers not to abuse their position to gain personal favours, especially not financial ones?--Rallette (talk) 13:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

How to teach Americans the RP accent of "or"?
Let's assume we'd like to teach a deaf GA speaker the RP accent of "or". Apparently, we have three ways to fulfil our task.
 * 1) We can show them the exact IPA spelling of the RP "or". Unfortunately, the American speaker may be someone who does not read IPA.
 * 2) We can write to them: "Try to say soh, yet without the s". Unfortunately, there isn't such a word like "soh", so that American speaker may fail to understand us.
 * 3) We can write to them: "Try to say or, yet without the r". Unfortunately, the linguists claim that the o followed by r is pronounced by GA speakers as the o of "soft" is pronounced by GA speakers, or - in other linguists' opinion - as the o of "hope" is pronounced by GA speakers; Whereas, neither of those o's is similar to the "or" in RP.

I think I can solve the problem, provided that you accept my claim in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#The_General_American_accent_of_.22o.22_followed_by_.22r.22. my following thread]. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 08:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * There are more precise ways of showing vowel pronunciation such as a Vowel diagram. But if you're teaching deaf people to speak, you don't show them IPA, you tell/show them how to physically pronounce the sound (see oralism). --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course I can teach them orally (by lip movement and likewise), but let's assume that - I don't trust that method - or I find it hard to use when teaching deaf people to speak. Anyways, according to User:Lsfreak (in the following thread), we can write to them: "try to say the first element of boy-diphthong". What do you think about this method? 77.127.219.111 (talk) 12:44, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with your third method. It's probably applicable to many American speakers. However, there's a great deal of variability in the pronunciation of or in the United States. I think it's not uncommon for Americans to pronounce or like the vowel sound in caught (as in GA, not RP speech). Also note that probably 5-10% have two kinds of or; for these speakers horse and hoarse are pronounced differently. With them you'll have to use horse. 96.46.197.214 (talk) 12:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As for my "third method" (as you've called it): Yes, that's what I'd thought, and you're the first here to approve of my hypothesis. As for "hoarse": I don't think it's relevant here, because I was talking explicitly about a [spelled] o followed by a [spelled] r - rather than by a [spelled] ar. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 13:26, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but for these speakers the vowel in force is the same as in hoarse, not horse. 96.46.193.139 (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * But you'd said: "With them you'll have to use horse", i.e. you'd claimed that the o in (RP) or is the same as in (GA) "horse", so how are you claiming now that "the vowel in force is the same as in hoarse, not horse"? Unless you think that the o in (RP) or is not the same as in (GA) "force", do you? 77.127.219.111 (talk) 17:21, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The or in force is (for people who make this distinction, which is still robust probably only in Scotland and parts of Ireland) pronounced the same as the oar in hoarse, not the same as the or in horse. Spelling can't always be your guide here: for people who make this distinction, pork and fork don't rhyme, nor do short and sport. Angr (talk) 17:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought 96.46.193.139 had been talking about Americans rather than about Scots, hadn't they? Anyways, I agree with you that in their last response they were claiming what you're claiming now, but I was asking about what they had claimed in their previous response, which seems to be quite the opposite. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 17:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I was talking about Americans. What Angr is saying is that the distinction is not very widespread among Americans. That's true, but there are some regions where it's not uncommon. I gave the figure of 5-10%, but it's certainly lower if you restrict attention to younger or white speakers. I'm not sure what the contradiction is. I'm saying that a minority of GA speakers pronounce horse and hoarse differently. For these people, it's the vowel sound in their version of horse (and not hoarse) that you'd use to explain how to pronounce or in an RP accent. 96.46.193.139 (talk) 23:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * From your previous response I concluded that "force" is not equal to "horse" (for the GA speakers who make the distinction between horse and hoarse), whereas, from your pre-previous response I concluded that "or" is equal to "horse"; As a result, I concluded (in my previous response) that (in your opinion) "or" is not equal to "force" (for the GA speakers who make the distinction between horse and hoarse), was I correct? If you approve, then there's no contradiction. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 08:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * For Americans who make the distinction, or is like horse and force is like hoarse. You'll find this distinction recorded in the tenth edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, published in 1993. If I recall correctly, it is no longer recorded in more recent editions. I don't make this distinction, so to find out about a particular word, I usually have to look it up. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The General American accent of "o" followed by "r".
Some linguists claim the o followed by r is pronounced (in GA) as the o of "soft" is pronounced (in GA), while other linguists claim the o followed by r is pronounced (in GA) as the o of "hope" is pronounced (in GA).

However, I don't hear the GA o, followed by r, as similar to either of the other o's mentioned above. To my ears, the o followed by r is pronounced by GA speakers - neither as they pronounce the o of "soft" nor as they pronounce the o of "hope"" - but rather as the RP speakers pronounce the o" followed by r, or very similar to that accent (Yet, being rhotic, the GA speakers pronounce also the r, not like the RP speakers).

Do I hear well? 77.127.219.111 (talk) 08:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * In general - "or", "ore" and "oar" are homophones on the US. And not the same pronunciation from region to region. Collect (talk) 08:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I think there's dialect problems getting in the way. My understanding is that strictly 'correct' GA has [sɔft] (matching RP or), but in reality you're going to get a variety of pronunciations (which you've noticed - I live just outside 'GA-land' and I'd expect to hear any of [ɔ ɑ ɒ a] - I happen to have [ɒ]).  The or-vowel, as I understand it, varies between [ɔ ~ o], so someone might assign it to the hope vowel depending on their interpretation (a closer or-vowel and a monophthongal hope-vowel), but I'd agree that it's usually quite different.  As far as I know, the most stable way of describing RP or would be to hold the first element of the boy-diphthong, which as far as I know remains [ɔɪ] in most/every major accent, but it's rather un-intuitive and probably hard to explain to a layperson in a way they could replicate it easily.  I'd say safest bet, barring an occasional outlier, would probably just be describing it as 'or without the r.'  Lsfreak (talk) 09:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Given that some GA speakers pronounce the "or" as [ɒr] / [ɑr], I agree with you that the first element of boy-diphthong should be regarded as the closest (if not identical) to the RP or. Hewever, I (not like you) still think that the GA o of "soft" (pronounced [sɔft]) is not similar to the RP or (pronounced [o:]). 77.127.219.111 (talk) 12:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, bit of a misunderstanding there I think. It's soft that I would expect any of [ɔ ɑ ɒ a], and or is strictly [ɔ ~ o], though I could be being mislead by my dialect. I was thinking that even in places with cot-caught merger or a vowel shift, the sequence o-r is a kind of half-diphthong (thus a separate vowel) and remains unchanged. Also, RP or has [o:]?  I was assuming a [ɔ:], which is what Wiktionary has for the entry.Lsfreak (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The RP vowel for THOUGHT/FORCE/NORTH is usually transcribed /ɔː/, but for many speakers it's rather higher than cardinal ɔ, so that [oː] is a reasonable transcription. It's not at risk of merging with the GOAT vowel because the latter is strongly diphthongal with a fronted starting point, [əʊ]. But if you compare the way a cot/caught-distinguishing American says caught and the way an educated English person says caught you'll hear they're very different vowels, even though both sounds are customarily transcribed with ɔ. The American sound is more open than cardinal ɔ and could plausibly be transcribed [ɒ]; it also has a tendency to diphthongize in some accents. (Imagine Rosie O'Donnell saying thought or caught - it's basically [ɒə̯].) Angr (talk) 19:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, and that's why I always wondered why the dictionaries indicate that the RP "or" has the same vowel as in GA "soft", while I always heard different vowels. Anyways, would you agree that the vowel in RP "or" is the closest to the GA vowel of "or" (which is, I think, quite similar to the first element of boy-diphthong and of low-diphthong)? 77.127.219.111 (talk) 17:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)


 * In the American midwest, at least, "ore" and "oar" are pretty close to being homophones, with a long "o". Think "ower" (someone who owes money or something) and then run the two syllables into one. (In some parts of the land, "ower", with two syllables, is closer to how they would actually say the ostensibly one-syllable "ore" and "oar".) But "or" is different. The "o" s an "aw" sound, like in "paw" - or like the "oer" part of "George" the "or" part of "gorge". In New York and some other big cities, they drop the "r" and "or" actually is pronounced "aw" - or possibly, to this midwesterner's ears, more like "aw-wuh". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Canadian pronunciation of o followed by r. Is it like the o in "hope"?
77.127.219.111 (talk) 09:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I would say they are the same, both [o], but it's sort of the same as the answers for American usage given above. "Or" could have [ɔ] depending on the speaker. (On the other hand, Lsfreak mentions that "or" could have any of [ɔ ɑ ɒ a] in the US, but I would say that isn't true for Canada - and the stereotypical way that Americans think Canadians say "sorry" would seem to confirm that). Adam Bishop (talk) 10:24, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you referting to the whole diphthong of "hope", or to the its first element only? Btw, How about the o of "boy"? Isn't it similar to the o of "or"? 77.127.219.111 (talk) 13:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, as I did above, I meant that any of [ɔ ɑ ɒ a] could be expected for soft, not or. Also, I suspect the sorry thing is just a dialect-specific 'oddity', like how some places happen to have /ɑn/ and others /ɔn/ for on, rather than anything revealing about the dialect's vowels overall. Lsfreak (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm also Canadian, and I think it's true that or is more similar to the vowel sound in hope than to any other non-rhotic vowel in my English. It's not the same as the vowel in soft. However, the vowel preceding r in my or is, I think, exactly the same as the vowel sound in the RP or or aw. 96.46.197.214 (talk) 12:39, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If you really pronounce it like the RP or - being a monophthong, then it can't be identical to the o of "hope" - being a diphthong, can it? Unless you've referred - to the first element of the diphthong - only, haven't you? Btw, how about the o of "boy"? Isn't it similar to the o of "or"? Anyways, you're the first here to claim that the o of "or" is exactly the same as the RP "or" - as far as the Canadian accent is concerned. I thought it was true also for the General American accent (as I've claimed in a previous thread of mine), however nobody (except for you) has approved of my hypothesis, so far. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 13:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Or" and "hope" could both have [ow]; "boy" also has a diphthong but of course that's [oj]. I would say they all have [o] for me, whether diphthongized or not. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * When I took and later was a TA for phonetics at a Canadian University, we were told that before /r/ was the only position other than the diphthong in boy where we'd ever encounter [ɔ] in Canadian English. However, many if not most people in the class were pretty adamant that they pronounced store with the same vowel as hope. So both probably occur depending on the person. --Terfili (talk) 16:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah I can see that having either vowel, too. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That's very possible, and I also think it's possible that perceptions get in the way. I can't tell the different between [oʊ] and [ɔɻ] based on sound, I have to go strictly by tongue movement - one glides close and the other retroflex, and if I start pronouncing stow, hold the vowel, and then shift to ore, the tongue drops and mouth opens.  But it's not something I can tell just on sound.  Lsfreak (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * 77, I didn't say my or, without the r-colouring, was identical to my vowel in hope. What I said was that of all the non-rhotic vowels in my speech, the hope vowel is the one that's closest to or. In view of Terfili's remark however, I realize that I'd forgotten about the initial element of the diphthong in boy. That's identical to my or, just as Terfili and 77 suggest. I would have been in the minority in Terfili's phonetics class. Also, Canadians (from BC to Quebec) frequently have a mid-high monophthong in hope or something approaching one. In this respect, Canadians are similar to people in Minnesota and surrounding areas. 96.46.193.139 (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The mid-high monophthong is especially common in unstressed syllables as far as I know. Also, since many people have trouble distinguishing [o] from [ow], it's likely that store was actually something like [stoɹ] for those people in the class. I doubt that [stoʊ̯ɹ] is a common pronunciation, if it even occurs at all. --Terfili (talk) 21:21, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

OP's summary: the Canadian accent (which is, I think, similar to the General American accent in this matter), has the vowel [o] in three cases: in the first element of boy-diphthong, of low-diphthong, and in nor (even as a monophthong, which is probably the more common case). 77.127.219.111 (talk) 18:29, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, not exactly. boy is, low is (or sometimes ), and nor is either  or . --Terfili (talk) 09:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What I understand from the comments of the other participants here, is that "boy" is pronounced, and please notice that when I say that "boy" is pronounced I don't mean that it's pronounced . Similarly, "nor" is pronounced either [nor] or . Of course, you're not committed to what I've concluded, but the other participants here are committed, because that's what is inferred from their comments. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 21:25, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What I can conclude from 96.46.193.139's comments is that he pronounces boy as and or as, since he said that the first element of boy is identical to his vowel in or, but that the vowel in or is not identical to the one in hope. That's pretty much what you'll find in the literature too. I don't think I've ever seen the diphthong of boy described as . Not even in my clinical phonetics textbook, which goes into ridiculous detail, even though it does say that some people find it difficult to distinguish toeing (which they transcribe with /o/) from toying (which they transcribe with /ɔɪ/). But of course there could well be speakers who pronounce that diphthong as [oj], as Adam Bishop claims he does above. --Terfili (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that 96.46.193.139 has claimed:
 * "the vowel preceding r in my or is, I think, exactly the same as the vowel sound in the RP or or aw".
 * Note also that, the vowel sound in the RP or or aw, is [o] (as indicated also by User:Anger in the previous thread). 77.127.219.111 (talk) 21:32, 19 March 2012 (UTC).
 * If you'll read Angr's comment closely, you'll notice that he writes "for many speakers it's rather higher than cardinal ɔ, so that [oː] is a reasonable transcription." (emphasis on "many", meaning not all), but that the most common transcription is still [ɔː]. So it's reasonable to assume that when 96.46.193.139 thinks of the RP-vowel of or and aw, he is thinking of [ɔ]. But I'm not going to make assumptions about how people in this thread pronounce things based on their written posts. What I'm saying is that based on my studies and the literature I've read, the Canadian English diphthong of boy is . If a student at the Canadian university I went to had handed in a phonetics assignment I had to grade, and transcribed boy as, I would have taken out my red pen, written next to it, and taken a mark off (and I probably did on several occasions). That student would then have been free to complain about it, and if he had made the point that he in fact pronounces boy as , he would have gotten the mark back. But unlike the / issue, I don't remember any student ever bringing it up. Which is probably a good indication that no one in fact pronounced boy as  , since students in my department were otherwise prone to forming angry mobs and complaining about pretty much anything that didn't go their way. That doesn't exclude that the  pronunciation exists in Canadian English, but it's almost certainly rare. --Terfili (talk) 22:06, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, so I misundersood 96.46.193.139. Thank you for correcting me. I'd rather - be corrected - than think I'm correct while I'm not. Btw, I've just seen you've been (still are?) a TA for phonetics at a Canadian University. Which univresity? Btw, what's your native language? I couldn't find it on your user page. Thankxs. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 23:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I used to TA phonetics at Brock, but I've long since graduated. And I've moved around too much in my life and my dominant language has changed too many times for me to be able to say what my "native" language is...That's why I decided that I have three "near-native languages" instead. --Terfili (talk) 11:31, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What's your mother tongue? i.e. what language did your parents speak to you - when you were born? 77.127.219.111 (talk) 12:11, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My parents spoke two different dialects of Alemannic to me when I was small, but sometime during primary school I switched to speaking Standard German, then switched back to speaking Alemannic as a teenager. But since age 11 I've spoken mainly English outside the family anyways and English has been my best-spoken language since about age 16. Alemannic may since have replaced English though because I've been living in an Alemannic-speaking environment again for the past two years. --Terfili (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting case. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 15:19, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I agree with Terfili's comments. In my mind, the RP version of aw is lower than [o], which I think of as being exemplified by the vowel sound in tôt in French, but higher than the [ɔ] in the word molle in French. (This could refer to either Canadian or Parisian French.) Perhaps I failed to take into account the variation that exists in RP, brought up by Angr, and relied too heavily on my own impressions of RP. In any event, this is how I would situate the initial vowel sound in my or and boy. 64.140.121.1 (talk) (Formerly 96.46...) 22:18, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, I think there's every reason to believe Terfili, given his expertise, will be more aware than I am of the variation among Canadian English speakers. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 22:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanx. 77.127.219.111 (talk) 23:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Same spelling but different meanings
How is Words like 1. wind(air), wind(twist) 2.live(verb), live(noun) 3.read(present), read(past) called? Thank you111.223.177.135 (talk) 09:07, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Homonym. BrainyBabe (talk) 09:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * More accurately, the examples given are homographs. Strictly speaking, a homonym should be both a homograph (i.e. same spelling) and a homophone (i.e. same pronunciation).  AJ  Cham  09:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

See "Fast" which has a huge number of even antonymic meanings! Collect (talk) 14:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI, "live" isn't a noun, "life" is a noun which becomes "lives" in the plural, and "live" can be an adjective, as in "live music"/"live animals", or an adverb as in "the band play live". - file lake  shoe  20:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * So "lives" (plural noun) and "lives" (verb form) fits the premise. By the way, "wind" (air movement) used to be pronounced with a long "i", the same as "wind" (twist), at least in poetic usage. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:53, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Like in the Songs of Innocence "The Chimney Sweeper"
 * "And by came an angel who had a bright key,
 * And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
 * Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
 * And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.


 * "Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
 * They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
 * And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
 * He'd have God for his father, and never want joy."
 * --Shirt58 (talk) 05:26, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Common practice for translation samples
I applied for a job that requires some skills in my mother language. After a perfunctory phone interview, they sent me a 350 words long marketing text, which they want me to translate as a sample, without offering any payment. Is that common practice? PurpleSorceress (talk) 18:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Dunno if it's common, but it seems pretty dumb. I would certainly want evidence that you can translate relevant material, but the process being used gives you perfect opportunity to cheat. Not suggesting you would, but why not test your ability (and that of other candidates) in a somewhat more rigorous way? HiLo48 (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I hadn't even thought of that! My concern was actually the other way round: Whether they were just doing that to get some free translations by people who really try very hard to do the best they can. PurpleSorceress (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * When I applied for a job as a translator, I was sent a 500-word document as a test translation, for which I was not paid (but I did get the job). But they weren't getting a free translation from me - it was their standard test translation document, which they used only to evaluate applicants' translation skills; they didn't need the document translated for one of their customers! I assume it's the same with the company where you're applying. I'm not sure how sending you the text at home is giving you the opportunity to "cheat" - either you're a good translator or you aren't. Translators aren't expected to be able to translate without any outside assistance (dictionaries, the Internet, etc.) anyway, so what's wrong with using that assistance for the test translation? My company expected me to tell them honestly what materials I had used, but they didn't expect me to do it all off the top of my head without looking anything up. So if my experiences are typical, yes, it's common practice, and no, it's not dumb. Angr (talk) 19:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Free test translations are a controversial subject. See this essay. 96.46.193.139 (talk) 20:10, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow, what an excellent essay! The discussion shows many different opinions, including some close to Angr's. Thanks everyone for the help! PurpleSorceress (talk) 21:52, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * They should be able to discern if it's "cheating" or not, as someone fluent in the language should be able to provide a "natural" translation, whereas someone who tries to translate it from Google Translate would likely get boxed in by doing a literal (and probably stilted) translation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe my mind works in evil and suspicious ways, but I was thinking more along the lines of getting a friend more competent in the language to do it for me. HiLo48 (talk) 03:00, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Could be. But if the job hinges on that skill, they would probably take a more rigorous approach. In this case, if he did cheat, and they were to find out he really didn't know the language, he could probably have a chance to learn the word "fired" in several languages. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Silent words/clitics in Irish?
Irish phonology seems to suggest that some words in Irish are not pronounced at all - for instance in the second example from the bottom, the words "An" and "is" seem to correspond to nothing in the IPA. I think I remember this from some place names as well. Are these words somehow clitics or are they actually silent? - file lake  shoe  19:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I would define clitic by how a word behaves morphosyntactically, not phonologically. There are certainly function words in Irish (most of the words spelled a for example) that can disappear in rapid speech, but they're not necessarily clitics from the morphological or syntactic point of view. In the sample texts you link to, I can find cases of is being reduced to [sˠ], but I don't see any example of it disappearing altogether. The question particle an is often deleted in speech, as in An bhfuil na fataí chomh maith is dúirt sé?, which the phonetic transcription shows was pronounced simply Bhfuil na fataí.... Another missing word in those samples is the a in An Ghaeilge a labhraítear i gCúige Mumhan, which the phonetic transcription shows to be simply An Ghaeilge labhraítear.... In this case, the final [ə] of Ghaeilge and the [ə] that is a are probably simply run together into a single [ə] sound. Angr (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry yes, I had my definition of clitic the wrong way around, I meant whether the words' pronunciation changes (or disappears) based on the words preceding/following them. So that "an" disappearing is something like people asking "what you doing?" - file lake  shoe  19:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, pretty much. In addition, it can be thought of as a phonological rule of Irish that [ə] disappears next to another vowel, so that words starting with [ə] lose it when they follow a word ending in a vowel, and words ending with [ə] lose it when they precede a word starting with a vowel. This is shown in the spelling of some words (e.g. m'athair for mo athair 'my father') but usually not. The loss of the interrogative particle is probably a separate phenomenon since it doesn't happen to other words pronounced [ə(n)] (notably the definite article); but the underlying presence of the interrogative particle is recoverable because the verb that follows it always undergoes eclipsis and is in the dependent form of the verb if it exists. So any sentence that is heard to begin with an eclipsed verb -- or a dependent verb form -- can be assumed to start with an unpronounced interrogative particle an. Angr (talk) 21:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What about the past tense particle do, which is preserved in verbs beginning with a vowel (d'ith sé, d'ól sé) and more generally in Munster Irish (do bhris sé) but not elsewhere (bhris sé)? jnestorius(talk) 19:19, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I suppose that's pretty much like the deletion of interrogative an, except that the omission of do is reflected in the standard written language too, while the omission of an isn't. I don't know for sure whether an is deleted before vowel-initial words, but I doubt it. I suspect An ólann tú caifé? is always [əˈn̪ˠoːl̪ˠən̪ˠ...] and never just [ˈoːl̪ˠən̪ˠ...] or even [ˈn̪ˠoːl̪ˠən̪ˠ...]. Angr (talk) 21:12, 17 March 2012 (UTC)