Learn Mando'a

This thread shall serve as a central location for all requests for help with specific translations. These requests seem to pop up in various other places, and I thought I would attempt to bring them into one central location.

I'll put a few links to other translation discussions around the forum so they're easily-accessible from here:

• Translation of "being protected" and discussion of past tense and passive/active voice

EDIT:
After looking through the other discussions, they tied in rather closely to their parent threads, so I don't think I need to specifically group them here as orphans.

If you have a question about translating a particular word or phrase, and it doesn't specifically tie in with any other threads, drop it here.

Maybe someone could help with this one. I'm looking for a term meaning something like hide in plain sight, or hidden in plain sight. Would that be "hodasal[ar]" -camouflage and \or cover up? Or wouldn't they be close enough in meaning?

It's possible that nuhaatyc (invisible, unseen) or werdla (stealthy, invisible) may apply to this situation. It's 02:30 here and I'm tired, so it's all I can come up with right now. I'll hop back on tomorrow (later today) and give it another shot with a fresh mind.

One thing that always confused me was the wording on this one:

te'habir be the-HAH-beer beh remove, take out (when used transitively, be precedes the object - No te'habi kad be dalab )

How is it properly used? Te'habi be kad dalab? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me...

I came across 2 words for "many" in the dictionary

Birov and ori'sol

Is there a difference or is the dictionary wrong on one?

ori'sol comes from solus. There are many related words such as naysol (too many), ge'sol (half), kisol (few).

birov has no root that I can find, and no similar words which don't involve the "sol" stem. I would personally go with anything involving the "sol" stem, just for consistency and flexibility. I'm not sure where birov came from, but I feel like it's likely either an oversight or possibly the original word for "many" before Karen revised the concept and added more related words, each with the same stem, from the same root.

But that's just my personal choice. I'd say use whichever makes the most sense or sounds the best in the context.

Naux2010 wrote: Birov and ori'sol

Is there a difference or is the dictionary wrong on one?

They are two words to express similar concepts. Its like adate and droten.

As always, though, make sure the word means what you think it does.
Like with 'bah' and 'at.' both mean 'to,' but different kinds of 'to.'

Cuyan Atinii wrote:

Naux2010 wrote: Birov and ori'sol

Is there a difference or is the dictionary wrong on one?

They are two words to express similar concepts. Its like adate and droten.

As always, though, make sure the word means what you think it does.
Like with 'bah' and 'at.' both mean 'to,' but different kinds of 'to.'

bah is the to [verb] and at is the to [direction] right? could you explain the difference for me.

At means to as in "I'm going to work."

Bah is dative, which means it designates the indirect object of an action as in "Princess Leia gave a medal to Han and Luke." Princess Leia is the subject, gave is the verb, the medal is the direct object, and Han and Luke are the indirect objects. to Han and Luke is a prepositional phrase, which designates the indirect objects -- in this case, the recipients of an action.

Wikipedia - Dative Case

I'll be honest, those two still confuse me.

Adi'karta wrote:At means to as in "I'm going to work."

Bah is dative, which means it designates the indirect object of an action as in "Princess Leia gave a medal to Han and Luke." Princess Leia is the subject, gave is the verb, the medal is the direct object, and Han and Luke are the indirect objects. to Han and Luke is a prepositional phrase, which designates the indirect objects -- in this case, the recipients of an action.

Wikipedia - Dative Case

at is the based on the word towards or (going) to where as to (possessive) hand some over is Bah. ok Got it.

and what is the difference between meg (that) and ibac (that) I think it might be the same as in bah and at right where meg is used preceding an action where ibac is to establish possession right?

I believe the difference between ibac and meg is like so: "That(ibac) is the train that(meg) I'm going to ride." Use meg wherever that could be replaced with which (or in some dialects/situations, what, as in "That(ibac) is what(meg) I'm doing.")

Adi'karta wrote:I believe the difference between ibac and meg is like so: "That(ibac) is the train that(meg) I'm going to ride." Use meg wherever that could be replaced with which (or in some dialects/situations, what, as in "That(ibac) is what(meg) I'm doing.")

ibac proceeding the object and meg preceding the verb.

Also on point, if I were to ask "what is that?" I'd probably say "tion'meg ibac?"

I recently wrote something and want to see if it makes any sense.

Mando'a :

Ner buir, ni kar'taylir darasuum. Ner Buir, ni partayli darasuum. Ner Buir, Gar darasuum oyacyir bat o'r ner. Ner Buir, Gar jatne be to jatne. Ner buir, ni ven'ijaat bah cuyi gar ad. Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum Papa.


English:

My Father, I love you. My Father, I will always remember you. My Father, you will forever live on in me. My Father, you are the best of the best. My Father, I am honoured to be your son. The last line that reads “Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partaylir, gar darasuum Papa.”

Seems pretty good. I don't see any major mistakes or anything.

We really need a less clumsy way to say love.

Vlet Hansen wrote:We really need a less clumsy way to say love.

Haat!
Not sure if riduurok is helping any as it's just for spouses.

Shab. Just got another idea which would make the whole thing a non-issue.

Mandos don't say 'I love you'. They show. So a short verbal version would be useless. The other would know from the actions how things are and actually saying 'I love you' would require a context in which the length of the expression doesn't actually amtter.

Not sure how to explain that well. From my experience Americans tend to throw a good many 'I love you's around. You here that a lot less in Germany (changing in younger generations because imitating the states.)

Well, it makes sense in my head. And personally I think we'd be off a lot better if we couldn't so easily excuse our actions with words...

I think I see where you're coming from. Seems it could work.

Okay, here's one.

What is "life"?