I choosed to split this topic, as it was inserted in a OBE/LD topic… and I would like to give my opinion about automatic translators without breaking the ongoing discussion off !
You could always use a translator, like the one on www.altavista.com I used that for French assignments in grade 9 and got 90’s!! Shhh…
Hmmm… I’m supposing your teacher was using the same translator!
Automatic translations give generally pitiful results.
“Bonjour, mon nom est Josh”. It makes sense, but french people would say: “je m’appelle Josh”. For instance: “Bonjour, je m’appelle Bond, James Bond.”
“et j’aime jongler les poissons qui sont sur le feu”. There is a error: we don’t say “jongler les poissons”, but “jongler avec des poissons”. Then, “qui sont sur le feu” means “which are on the stove”. In English, I suppose it means they are burning, in flames.
“tout en montant mon unicycle.” The verb “monter” is for a horse. “riding a bicycle” = “faire du vélo”.
Thus the litteral translation would be, IMO: “Bonjour, je m’appelle Josh et j’aime jongler avec des poissons en flammes tout en faisant de l’unicycle.”… which, translated again with Google language tools, gives: “Hello, I am called Josh and I like to juggle with fish in flames while making unicycle.”
But does “juggle fish that are on fire” mean something special in English? Is it an idiomatic expression?
LOL!! If you’re going to use a translator, you have to have a general idea of whether the translation is correct, or incorrect. I have used a few online for German class and most of them are pathetic pieces of crap. I have found Google to be the best so far, however. I always wanted to take French but supposedly our school didn’t have a teacher for it the year that I was to take it. (Even though the foreign language teacher had gone over to Chad during the summer and taught the French how to speak English… )
Heh heh, by the way, you should hear the French they speak around here
They call it Franglais, mostly really robust French with English mixed in, it’s easy to undertsnad for me because of all the English nouns they throw in
LOL! I searched and found a canadian page about franglais, it’s incredible! As for us, the term Franglais exists too, but it means mixing terms that most people thinks to be English but often aren’t, like “les waters” (for toilets), “le parking” (for a car park), “des chips” (for crisps), etc. So you’ll find it far more difficult to understand!