Translation - Polish-English - pat nie pracuje i bym pojechal ale brak pieniedzy...

i dont have money - i think i should be no money, that's not ok- it's not ok, and without WHEN- at the and, only i will be earning more. (not again)

Sure; but the point is to make translations that make sense in the target language, not about staying religiously close to the source language.

I hope this doesn't seem too patronising, but you've touched on a common mistake made by Polish speakers in English: when talking about future events, in Polish all parts of the clause are in the future tense, but in English, once it's established that we are talking about a future event, we use the present tense from then on.
'Zadzwonię do Ciebie, kiedy będę w Anglii' becomes 'I will phone you when I /am/ in England', not 'when I will be'.

Your other point touches on the use of the impersonal; English lacks an impersonal form, so the only way to accurately describe what's happening (without long explanations like this one) is to simply make the statement personal. The original was 'brak pieniędzy u mnie' - I *could* have translated that as "I am experiencing a lack of money" but that would look too formal.

Hi Jimreagan. Have read your translation. here are my comments they may help you :

Pat. I'm not working and I would like to travel but "I don't have ANY money " or I have no money".
I dont want to depend on you, it's unfair. When I have got a contract we can travel because then I 'll have some money.

In English you CAN use the future except with
some words or expressions : ""when" , "as long as", "as far as", and one or two others.

There you MUST use present tense.

Hope this can help you!!!!!

Thank you for duly patronising me in turn

Hi again . Didn't want at all to patronize you.
I never behave that way, but of course, you don't know me yet. Just wanted to help if I could. It's the way we work here. Trying to help each other. Real sorry if I did it in a " patronizing "way. If you feel it that way, I apologize.

Heh. It's ok... that's why I winked

I take it you don't speak Polish; Kasia's suggestions were more along the lines of making the translation more literal -- like a machine translator[1] would suggest, whereas I am trying to give a translation that's more English in feel.

So, the points she raised are that she thinks 'brak pieniędzy' should be 'no money' - perhaps, but that would be bad English; that 'to' should be 'it' not 'that' -- I disagree[2]; and that 'więcej' should be 'more', not 'again' - she's quite correct about that, but 'I will be earning more' is not a complete valid English sentence, whereas 'I will be earning again', while not a strict translation of the words, is a better translation of the meaning.

[1] I'm making an open source Polish<->English translator, so I'm quite aware of how that works

[2] Polish has 'conversation focus', while English has 'speaker focus', so while a simple gloss of 'to' would be 'it' or 'this', because of the difference in focus, in this case it should be 'that'.

Hi Jimreagan. I don't speak Polish, of course, so it seams I didn't catch what you explained.
You know, I think you explain in a very teachy way , and I like it.

Thank for your explanation. SMILE.

Yeah... one of my sisters says that every time she asks me a question, she gets a lecture

But why "of course"? Wouldn't you like to learn? :P (I know, so little time, so many languages... )

Hi again. Of course, I would like to learn Polish,but you know, at the moment, I'm trying to get my mother tongue back. Danish . Have been living in Denmark for only 25 years and the rest of time in France. And it's not that easy as one could think. Actually, what I would like you to do, is that you correct my Enlish when you find
some errors, and you will. Okay!!!!

So biiiiiiig a smile.

I understand. My friend's mother is from Jersey, her parents are French Canadian, but she's been living in Ireland for so long that she has trouble talking to them in French. I also know a few Polish speakers in Ireland who speak in Russian sometimes instead of Polish, because they work with a lot of Russian speakers. Sounds crazy, but true

Hi,

This text message is very unclear (as usual) so it's hard to get what the author meant. Anyway, Polish is my mother tongue so I'll try to help.

pat nie pracuje -> Pat doesn't work/isn't working

i bym pojechal: I think that "I would travel" emphasises things that should not be emphasised. I believe that "leave for/go (there) would be more suitable.

"jak bede mial kontract to pojedziemy bede wiecej zarabial": I see what you mean, translators should be flexible but you shouldn't change the meaning. You could have used "again" if the guy had earned more money before but there's no information about it in the text.

Regards,
OleÅ›.

"pat nie pracuje" może być również przetłumaczone jako "pat isn't working". Szkoda, że w tekście źródłowym nie ma polskich znaków, to by ułatwiło sprawę. "pojechał" przetłumaczyłabym na "go" a nie "travel". i jeszcze ostatnie zdanie w tekście źródłowym "bede wiecej zarabial" - "I'll be earning more" a nie "again".

Hi Jimregan, Hi Lilly

I think you should put "I can't be dependant on you" rather than "I can't count on you".

"I can't count on you" means "I can not trust you", and I'm sure that the original means "I can't be dependant"

Bises
Tantine

Olesniczanin, alsa: a number of points.

1. 'Pat' is a short form of 'Patricia' -- because the person who requested the translation is named 'Patricia', I choose to read the text as 'Pat, nie pracujÄ™' rather than 'Pat nie pracuje'. This makes more sense, in context.

2. 'więcej' is commonly used in Polish to denote that an act will be repeated; which is my interpretation of this sentence. In English, 'more' is *not* used (alone) in this sense, which is why I used 'again'.

3. Yes, I concede that 'go' could be a better translation than 'travel', but that depends on context, which is absent. The sender could be talking about a holiday, or something else; 'travel' catches more potential cases.

Hi Tantine

Yes, I agree -- but given the amount of Polish speakers who question every non-literal translation, I think I'll just leave it in the comments

hi, patricia here. i posted the message. i,d like to thank you for your translations. i understand the message now. my friend is a work colleague and i asked him if he would like to go for a drive somewhere when we were next off work.that message was his reply.

Jimregan, I'm not a follower of literal translations, far from it. The post above makes things clearer and I can see you were right at some points. Anyway, please note that "więcej" can be used in the meaning you've mentioned only in negative sentences (like "Już tego więcej nie zrobię".
I hope you don't mind that we're all contesting some parts of the translation. It's all about the collaboration here and I expect your constructive criticism of my translations as well.

Regards,
Oles