Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 October 28

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October 28

-ing

As I understand it, strictly speaking phrases like "Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you" should be "Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die are saluting you", as their salute is in progress occuring in a given, concrete moment (like "I'm reading a book" or "He's playing a game"). Why it isn't like that? Thanks.--93.174.25.12 (talk) 08:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Primarily because a salute is a single, brief action, done just once, while activities like reading and playing are ongoing and extend over a period of time. I kick a ball while I am playing football. Wymspen (talk) 08:21, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There's no "strictly speaking" about it. The Latin "te salutamus" translates both "we salute you" and "we are saluting you", and these are both grammatical, natural, English expressions, but with slightly different meanings. For most verbs, we use the continuous "we are X-ing" for activities which are going on at present, and the simple present "we X" for other uses, such as habitual ("We go to school"), intended ("We leave next week") or timeless ("We speak English"). For performative verbs such as 'salute', the simple present is generally used. So "We salute you" is itself the salutation, while "We are saluting you" talks about the act of saluting you. --ColinFine (talk) 09:24, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And as for the more abstract sense of salute, abstract verbs that cover activities without a clear beginning or end also use the present tense. "We salute you" is effectively "We respect you" (not *"We are respecting you") - I think it's a stative verb in that sense. Smurrayinchester 09:27, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and "are saluting you" has present continuous AKA "present progressive" grammatical aspect. 14:52, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There Is No Portal For Translation Studies - On Friday, 28 October, 2016 -

Hi!

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it is not normal that there is still no official portal in Wikipedia for this academic field named translation studies as there is more than plenty of valid materials to build up a constructive tool.

Have a good day, and thank you for your reading of these comments and for the good understanding of the situation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56B:DDA3:2F00:C1F5:7A79:956:EACB (talk) 21:21, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia:Translation, for a start; there are some other related links on that page. There is also a WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Translation studies. But it does seem that the field is a bit neglected on Wikipedia (in the sense of it being an academic and professional field). Adam Bishop (talk) 11:11, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Many WikiProjects do not have portals, maintaining a portal takes quite a lot of work which may be unsustainable particularly for smaller projects. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Na'vi translation

How would one say "The child was throwing rocks at the thanator." in Na'vi? Purplesaurus Rex (talk) 21:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

See Avatar (2009 film) for context. Presumably there are fansites out there where this question might get a better answer. Tevildo (talk) 18:05, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

English level in Spain

Can someone point me to sources confirming or rejecting the assumptions below?

Why do Spaniards have such a low level in English? Has the phenomenon been studied scientifically?

I mean, they begin teaching their children English at a lower age than other European countries, are somehow connected to the UK (through tourism and migration in both directions), more or less economically average compared to other EU countries, and seem to have a lot of private English academies. Despite this they occupy one of the last positions in the EU, if not the last, regarding their level of English. What has gone wrong?31.4.147.110 (talk) 23:16, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Chapter 2, "Nationalism and Linguistic Conflict" and "Education System in Spain" in "What is the 'Economic Value' of learning English in Spain?", a 2015 Scripps senior thesis by Molly M. Robbins might be a start (including references to more pertinent studies I can't link to). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:27, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Sluzzelin, I would suggest that the source you have cited is not even written in grammatical English. For example, the abstract includes this phrase: "Spain has lacked the same linguistic exposure to foreign languages especially English than the rest of Europe." [sic] The question assumes a rather weirdly bigoted premise, and asks us to support it. This is not a forum, and we do not engage in speculation or debate. μηδείς (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Good point, medeis, thanks. I merely skimmed, and guess I was in a hurry to prophylactically place some reference. Not always a good idea. Sorry 'bout that. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:49, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

No need to apologize to me, but when IP posters go around asking what is wrong with these people in bold print, it begs the question. See "Have you stopped beating your wife?". μηδείς (talk) 18:38, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

There is solid data (Eurostat) about what country has the fewer adults who speak a foreign language. But Spain is not the last. Hungary and Bulgaria are at the bottom, Spain is the third worst. I don't know about the rest, but this bit is not a prejudice (like one based on Manuel).Llaanngg (talk) 21:15, 29 October 2016 (UTC)