Cycle Donnez Votre Blog

[shootingstar]

That's how the name of my cyclewrite blog translates into French. I'm not totally convinced about the correctness of this automatic software French translation.

I added a little translation button to my blog. But honestly I've refrained from leading people to translation software because I've heard enough negative stuff from native speakers/readers. And I didn't want to appear naive, unilingual speaker (and I'm not even though I've lost a ton of my mother tongue. I know the pitfalls of literal translation and interpretation.).

What would you do if you were me and designing a 4th blog which will definitely target an international, niche audience? Would you still offer a translation software button for automatic text translation?

[channlluv]

i'm not sure about the translation software, and it's been over a quarter of a century (yikes - how's that for a disclaimer) since I took French in college, but I'm reading your title as "Give Your Cycle" -- is that right?

Isn't "bicycle" "bicyclette" in French?

Roxy

[tulip]

As a French speaker, I'm not sure what the title of your blog is supposed to be. I find translation software to be pretty humorous, but not much more than that. I tend to believe that any mistakes should be my own; translation software makes many mistakes and you won't even be aware of them. Stick with the original. Anyone reading the translation is going to focus on all the odd phrases, and it will reflect poorly on your blog.

[malkin]

...I find translation software to be pretty humorous, but not much more than that...

Me too.
You could probably run a phrase endlessly through a number of languages with each getting further and further from the original meaning.

[shootingstar]

After seeing how my blog title translated, I seriously wonder. And that's just the title....

My partner sometimes starts off with automatic translation software when he does attempt to write a simple letter to his relative(s) in German.Then he checks painstakingly, each sentence and will resort to a dictionary if the sentence doesn't make sense to him in order to find a better German word. The idea for him is to shortcut abit of figuring out the basic grammar and sentence sructure, but it still demands a person to understand the correct grammar and syntax, to ensure the framework for word usage is a sound foundation.

[malkin]

When I put "Cycle Write Blog" into Babelfish, it gives me:
le cycle écrivent le blog.

I'm not sure where the "donnez" is coming from.

If you were looking for sentence structure, the translator would be useless because although it is a cute and catchy title, "Cycle Write Blog" doesn't really have a correct English grammatical form.

It looks like for the translation above, Babelfish imposed a Noun (cycle), Verb (write), Noun (blog) structure just as it would for a sentence like "Man bites dog."

[tulip]

I read it as three verbs: cycle, write, and blog. Hard to be sure with no commas though.

[malkin]

That makes sense, Tulip.

I guess I had sort of play on words in mind possibly because I am overly fond of the suffix "-wright" as a homonym of right and write.

[shootingstar]

I agree malkin, Babelfish's translation is a bit closer.

As for name of blog in English: of course, I deliberately invented a blog name that was "brand like" and catchy. Yes, I chose it for the pun on write vs. right. It's a good lesson how brand names need to be translated in a spirit that reflects the original meaning of a 'name'.

[malkin]

And even thoughtful human translators will struggle with any sort of double meaning.