Job Discussion Forums

[hobo]

I'm not sure myself, but I've been speaking to Baba Alex, and he believes thus -

1. The idea that someone being a native speaker gives them greater knowledge of a translation issue is a logical fallacy as translation involves two languages rather than one and thus the only true authority would someone bilingual who has spent equal time in both cultures and has no bias. Failing that we rely on our own experiences, an experienced language editor I would certainly be wary of context when something translated from Turkish came to me with words such as boring and nervous scattered around the place.

I would not translate


- Nasilsin?
- te?ekk�r ederim

into

- How are you?
- Thank you.

As I wouldn't have the sentence

- That exam was boring because it was too hard.

or

- The loud banging all night made me nervous.

The person translating these sentences might think they mean bored and nervous, but they simply don't. The feeling being expressed is not boredom. Translating emotions between Turkish and English is problematic across the board (bored heh!), for instance

asabiyet

can mean

frustration, irritability and nervousness according to Zargan. In English there is a definite distinction between the three emotions. I'd suggest the only real solution is to either avoid problematic words, or immerse yourself in the culture and cultural artefacts of the language. You could just not give a hoot as well.

In conclusion, a Turk who thinks that SIKILDIM means simply BORED should consider the following sentence.

I was bored in the traffic jam.

I've seen how people react in traffic jams in Istanbul, they certainly don't yawn and twiddle their thumbs. On the whole they shout and beep the horn. Therefore I'd suggest that as a native speaker of Turkish, burdik fully understands the meaning of SIKILDIM, but at as non-native speaker of English he or she is having a problem with the word BORED.

No offence.




(back to hobo) Well thanks Baba Alex I'm sure that will clear things up!

[dmb]

Thanks Baba.

RIP

[burdik]

The fact that it is my native language doesn't necessarily have to mean that you must 'bow to my authority' But it is a fact that as a native speaker, in a classroom enviroment in Turkey when a studen says SIKILDIM I know exactly what they mean, simply because I was born and have lived all my life here and it wasn't long ago that I was sitting at one of those seats as a student. Plus in my second or third post I said that I'd spoken to some colleagues of mine, all of whom agreed with the meaning of the word. So the answer to your question "Who are you that we should believe what you say over that another Turk tells us ... who are you to think that we should believe you over what we have ourselves experienced?" I'm telling you what I have experienced here for 28 years and what others who've spent all their lives here are saying. But then again it is of course you to decide who or what you believe. Although this is kinda off topic, I must add, I get the feeling that you have anger issues, chill out dude.

As for hobo's post, I never said that the reaction that people give in traffic is not anger or frustration but boredom. I said that people get annoyed at traffic (that's when they shout and beep the horn) and there is a word for that (sinirlenmek, kızmak, siniri bozulmak) but then there are people who 'yawn and twiddle their thumbs' in traffic and that is SIKILMAK. As I said before it might be a cultural thing. As you are a native speaker of English, I'd gladly take your advice (advise?) and wouldn't mind to open a dictionary and check the meaning of a word. But before you suggest me to fully understand the meaning of a Turkish word, I suggest you read my post carefully and fully undertstand what I said.

no offence either

[hobo]

[dmb]

[dmb]

Baba, have you done a 31?

[hobo]

[dmb]

Sorry...... how much do you earn?

[hobo]

[dmb]

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

So we'll ignore your very sophisticted but inaccurate argument - 'my native Turkish speakers are bigger than your native Turkish speakers' ...

Let's look instead at your statement that you know that everytime a student in a classroom says SIKILDIM, he/she means he/she is bored ...

Can you seriously deny that a student who is struggling to keep up with the course, who has just got her homework back - for which she received an 'F', who has just been given a long list of essential vocab to learn, and who has an exam in about 1 hour might, just might, say 'SIKILDIM' .. with the meaning of 'Oof bu cok fazla ... cok zorlaniyorum'

Do you deny this is possible ... yes or no ... because as Baba and others have pointed out, it does not translate into English as 'bored' ... even you yourself, eventually admitted at the start of this thread that it can mean more than just bored ...

[FGT]

As I hinted at earlier, we cannot define the word "sıkıldım" while using English as the medium, unless we can agree on a definition (in English) of "bored".
It would appear that all the native speakers of English who (at least claim to) have an appreciation of Turkish agree that there can be a difference between the meaning of "sıkıldım" and "bored". Therefore we have to look at the understanding of the word "bored" by the native Turkish speaker(s). Thereby lies the problem.

Burdik - I am not having a go at you, but I think you should listen to what you hear. It's all very well checking the meaning of "sıkıldım" with your erudite Turkish friends but that is different to translating it into another language.

[blondie10]

What?

[justme]

I thought it was because the discussion crumbled into the finer points of nose-picking...

[hobo]