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Re: [Enigma-devel] Re: English Translation


From: Tacvek
Subject: Re: [Enigma-devel] Re: English Translation
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:30:18 -0500


----- Original Message ----- From: "Clifford J. Tasner" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 12:34 PM
Subject: [Enigma-devel] Re: English Translation


Andreas, Ronald & Company,

I continue to enjoy your great accomplishment. One small issue I have, and it doesn't lessen the fascination your puzzles hold for me, is that occasionally, the translations of the text to English are awkward and non-idiomatic. For example, one level is entitled, "Tripple Threat" - the word is actually spelled "Triple"- now this may have been intentional. However, there are a number of messages in "Aztec Temple" that are off the mark - the word is "relic" not "relict" and "impressive" not "impressing." Also, some of the sentences seem odd to a native English speaker.

You are right. Sometimes the sentences do seem odd. Often the meaning is clear, but the grammar is incorrect. Occasionally the sentence is truly valid English, but uses obscure or non-standard sentence structures. There are other issues.

Perhaps this isn't a priority. It certainly doesn't diminish how much fun Enigma holds. However, if you are interested in some help, I would be eager to review the various English texts in the game and offer more accurate translations when you're getting ready for the next version of Enigma.

Enigma is an open source project. Like just about all of them we don't have the problem of
too many contributors. If you feel you can help in any way please do.

I'm a former Classics student with a background in Linguistics. Before I quit so that I could pursue my film career (I am a film composer), I taught English As A Second Language. I do a great deal of writing in English. I regret that German is not yet among the languages that I speak, but I have some German-speaking friends. I could certainly compare the authors' levels' texts in English and German and make recommendations as to more appropriate English when necessary.

I don't wish to be presumptuous. I just want to make a contribution to something that I appreciate greatly.

Not at all. It has been mentioned several times that there are some problems with the English Those of us who are native English speakers do also notice these things, but have not found time to audit the game text for these problems. (I speak for myself here, but am fairly confident this is the case for the others.)

If you have the time and ambition, it would definitely be appreciated.



(Sorry for the message seeming strangely structured and somewhat incoherent. I wrote it from the bottom up [a bad habit of mine], and this is the result).


Tacvek




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