Translation - Greek-English - Αναμνήσεις φέρνουν οι ωραίες στιγμές.

"come from" or "bring (back)"?

CC: User10

Hmm...the exact word is "bring" (but, original syntactic order: memories-object, great momemts-subject)
I'd translate "great moments bring memories".

"Memories bring back great moments"

Or: "the great moments bring memories"

Hi User10,

The Spanish version is: "Memories bring the good times" and IMO that makes sense. "Through memories we revive the good moments we had in life"

How could possibly a great moment "bring" a memory unless it's happening for the second time?
Let's decide which form is correct.

Hi Lilian,

In the original it's the good moments that "bring" memories ("great moments" -NOM.subject, the agent that "acts" ).

Now, this "bring" could mean:
1) "revive" ( "good moments revive memories" ), meaning, as you said, that smt is happening for a second time, or maybe
2) "create" ("good moments create /stay as/ become memories" ).

"Memories bring the good times" is a word-for-word translation of the original, but it cannot convey the message of the original since syntax doesn't work the same in both languages. OVS word order creates misunderstanding when translated as it is into a language that doesn't use this construction. So, "Memories bring the good times" in Greek is understood as OVS (since "good times"-isn't accusative, but nominative), but in English as SVO. I don't know if OVS works for Spanish...



CC: lilian canale

Hello everyone!
As I'm the one who has translated this sentence from Greek (I'm Greek), I have to say that "bring" could only be replaced by "create". We could also translate it in detail and more analytically, as proposed, but I think that it would be too much for a simple sentence!

Hum...I think what you mean is that:

"Great moments turn into memories"

Am I right?

Exactly! And if we want to be even more accurate to the Greek way of speaking, it should be "It's great moments that turn into memories"

User? Do you agree?
We have to give a final version here in order to adapt the Spanish translation that so far differs a little from this one.

CC: xristi

Lilian, Spanish language is closer to Greek so what I wrote in Spanish (recuerdos traen los buenos momentos) is exactly what the Greek sentence is saying. English is tricky...

I can see this is a tricky line specially without further context, but we must agree about the subject/object of it.

Is it that:

"Memories bring (back to our minds) the great moments (we have lived)?

or

"Great moments turn into memories (that we keep forever in our minds)?

User?

The Greek text word by word is: "Memories (object) bring(verb) , the good moments(subject)" , but it's OVS. As I said before, I would choose to translate it "Good moments bring memories", just to avoid this confusion that speaker seems to had in his mind (maybe with notes: 1) Good moments turn into/create memories, 2) Good moments bring back memories of other good moments, ).

For sure, not a succesful combination of words. "Good/Great" and "bring" are "unlucky" word choices (talking about the greek text) in this case, because they bring to mind two frozen phrases " Great/good moments stay/turn into memories" (create) and "This moment/something brings me memories" (revive) . To translate "bring" (just) as "turn into" seems a bit "dangerous" to me due to the above-mentioned, "bring" 's semantic properties (in relation to "memories" ).

Syntactically: The "doer" is the "good moments", these "bring" the memories.

OK, thank you all.

I think the requester will appreciate the efforts on this ambiguous line and take the best advantage of it. Since he has English in his profile, I suppose he understood everything that was posted here