Questions tagged [translation]
Determining English equivalents for words or phrases in other languages (that is, translation into English). We don't actually do translations: we can try and help you with your own translation. Please see the detailed tag info for guidance on what to ask.
992 questions
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How do you describe anything spurious, of low quality or anything fake that imitates the original? [duplicate]
The Urdu language phrase " دو نمبر (Roman Transliteration: do numbar)," which means "fake," "spurious," or "of inferior quality". It's often used to describe ...
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3
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Usage of 'allow' vs. 'enable' in technical documentation for devices
I am translating some documents about a device. The device has a function (feature) that lets users make a special measurement. In this case, which is better to use: allow or enable (or another verb)?
...
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What is the proper UK/US business term for the German word 'Konzern'?
Here are the LEO dictionary translations of the German term 'Konzern', which can be considered synonymous with 'corporation':
concern [KOMM.]
enterprise
group [KOMM.]
group of companies [Abk.: GP] ...
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3
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How would you say "un(e) semaine/mois/année flottant(e)" in English?
In French, "un mois flottant" or "un mois glissant" refers to the period between some day and the same day the preceeding or following month.
So, for example, the "mois ...
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Does an IT admin "care for" or "administrate" PCs? [closed]
I am a IT-system administrator and I would like to know how to say one of my jobs/tasks in English. I'd say "ich kümmere mich um PCs" in German. In English, which is more idiomatic?
I care ...
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Gerund or present participle? [duplicate]
In this example:
to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message"
is "bearing" a gerund or present participle? I would say that "bearing" is a ...
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English equivalent of shinrinyoku (森林浴) - a practice of therapeutic relaxation in the forest or nature
Shinrinyoku (森林浴) is a Japanese word and it literally means forest bathing. Wikipedia explains as below:
Shinrin-yoku (Japanese: 森林浴, 森林 (shinrin, "forest") + 浴 (yoku, "bath, bathing.1&...
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What is the English equivalent of the painting technique "pittura a corpo"?
In Italian, pittura a corpo is defined as:
tecnica di pittura che usa colori formati da un impasto ricco di pigmenti e di spessore consistente
https://dizionario.internazionale.it/parola/pittura-a-...
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The sentence "May I be sacrificed for the dust of your feet"
I'm a native Persian speaker, and I'm translating a book from Persian to English. In some parts of the book, I come to some phrases that are intended to show the most sense of humbleness, love, and ...
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Translating Russian "не то, не то" into English
The Russian language has a funny construct, "не то, не то" (roughly meaning "neither entirely/positively this, nor entirely/positively that") which normally indicates that the ...
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How would "Freizeichen" translate to English as opposed to "Wählton"?
How would "Freizeichen" translate to English as opposed to "Wählton"?
I am getting dial tone as the translation for both words.
"Freizeichen" - the tone that indicates, ...
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2
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Translation or equivalent feature to using an pronoun to highlight interest like with the French « arrête-moi ça » in colloquial speech?
– [Annoying behavior]
– Arrête ça ! [Stop that!]
– [Annoying behavior, again]
– Arrête-moi ça !
In French a pronoun can be used in colloquial speech to highlight the interest or importance of the ...
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1
answer
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letting someone down (when playing bridge)
I am translating W Somerset Maugham's 'The Three Fat Women of Antibes'. There are a few terms about bridge, and I suspect this is one of them:
They had always been fond of talking over their hands, ...
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1
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Looking for an English equivalent of the Chinese word "管"
In Chinese, there is a word (verb) called "管" (pronounced "guan"), which, when translated to English in a dictionary, means "control", "care", or when paired ...
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1
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colourful and achromatic colours - is there a better term?
Disclaimer: I'll subsequently use "grey" and "colour"; spellings "gray" and "color" are not excluded, I just don't want to list them every time. This question ...
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1
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Transition word [closed]
I recently encountered a question regarding the best transition phrase to use in a particular passage about Michel de Montaigne’s essay, “Of the Inequality amongst Us.” The context is as follows:
The ...
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3
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Saying similar to Chinese 安贫乐道: "To be content with poverty and strive for virtue"?
There is a saying in Chinese, 安贫乐道, which means something along the lines of "To be content with poverty and strive for virtue."
I'm looking for something similar in English, even if it's ...
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10
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Word for when someone tries to make others hate each other
Is there a single word in English that describes when someone tries to make others hate each other or fight? So, for example, If person A and B are neighbors, so in this situation Person C tries to ...
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How to translate the German word "Mitmenschlich(keit)"
Both German and Dutch have two distinct words "Mitmensch" ("medemens") and "Mensch" ("mens"), and the derived adjectives "mitmenschlich" and "...
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Meaning of "blunk"
Wordle accepts "blunk" as a correct word, but neither Google Translate nor ChatGPT give a translation.
ChatGPT:
If "blunk" is a valid choice in Wordle, then it might be an English ...
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3
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Idiomatic expression for "this will cost $1000 as if a penny"
In Hungarian, one can say "ehhez legalább $1000 kell, mint egy fillér". It means that a task will be expensive - $1000 might be enough to start but it might be much more, that is, $1000 ...
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How are called the fouls made with the sole? Translation of ‘planchazo’
Need help for an English equivalent of this action, I didn't find anything:
planchazo (also plancha)
Adelantamiento frontal de la suela del pie, que constituye una infracción en varios deportes.
???
...
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Are there other proposed translations of "aelfheres" in Beowulf than a name?
Am looking at the online Beowulf site, and wonder about "aelfheres" that is translated as a name.
XXXVI
WIGlaf wæs haten, Weoxstanes sunu,
leoflic lindwiga, leod Scylfinga,
mæg ...
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2
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In "amount of data, collected ~", which is modified by 'collected~'? amount or data?
The fast-growing, tremendous amount of data, collected and stored in large and numerous data repositories, has far exceeded our human ability for comprehension without powerful tools.
(from Data ...
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English equivalent of the Russian idiom "You are confusing sour with yellow"
There is an idiomatic expression in my native language: "You are confusing sour with yellow", which means something like that though lemons are sour and yellow, not every yellow thing is ...
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What’s the meaning of the "floating sheds"?
Boats rocked in the floating sheds of the yacht harbor.
Does "floating shed" refer to the cabin of the yacht?
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How to correctly translate "управляющая" to English? Is "head maid" only appropriate translation?
Context:
Fictional world (with magic, slavery (not widely used)) and so on.
A woman is the estate manager for small estate in a city. She oversees other hired servants and serve estate owners directly....
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English Translation from the german word "IT Systemhaus"
I am new to this site. I hope I am on the right one, as it looks like it has more than just one for English.
What I am looking for is the correct translation of the German term "IT-Systemhaus.&...
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1
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How to write a name of competition in an article? [duplicate]
Hi I am translating text from Polish to English. I would like to ask you about your thoughts on it:
A title of a newspaper is in Polish, do I need to add quotation marks or italics?
The name of ...
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The words to describe a slave's mentality
I am trying to translate a Chinese word 奴才 into English. Quite often it is translated to slave. But 奴才 is more about a person's mentality, e.g. obedient servant and being numb, timid, apathetic, and ...
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In Persian there is word for "A smile that taste bitter"; is there a word for it in English? [duplicate]
In Persian we have a word to describe this conflicting state:
"facing a situation that makes one smile even though it's not a good situation, and it might even have negative effect on them."
...
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looking for a correct/ idiomatic phrase
Context: A recent meeting between Chinese and American Foreign affairs bosses in Munich.
Original:
双方就开展人文交流，便利人员往来交换了意见。王毅敦促美方停止无端滋扰盘查中国公民，多做有利于增进两国人民相互了解的事情，并送美方一句古话：“勿以恶小而为之，勿以善小而不为。
During their ...
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How would you name the different types of periods? ~ Translating ‘punto seguido’, ‘punto y aparte’ and ‘punto final’
In Spanish, we have different names for the different types of periods:
If the period is inside a paragraph, it's called punto seguido.
If the period ends a paragraph, it's called punto y aparte.
If ...
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Etymology and Elizabethan English connotations of "sat at meat" (Mark 2:15, KJV)
I came across a King James (1611) translation of Mark 2:15:
And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: ...
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8
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Idiomatic expression for "putting off a task until a disaster strikes" [duplicate]
In Russian language there is a proverb "Пока гром не грянет, мужик не перекрестится".
Literal translation would be something like this: the peasant will not cross himself before it begins to ...
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2
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Word equivalent to "prestation" in French in the administrative field
I'm searching for an English word which could have the same meaning than the word "prestation" in french, in the sense of "some service (paid or not) that has been executed by an ...
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Idiomatic word or expression for a lazy and unmoral person who gets paid without working - Translation of Spanish ‘ñoqui’ [duplicate]
I'm not talking about the Italian dish. In Argentina, there's a well known expression for someone who doesn't go to work and only assists the last month's day to get paid: It's called a ñoqui. The ...
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Which is more common, "self-responsibility" or "personal responsibility"? (in the workplace)
I'm trying to figure out what the best translation is for the German word "Eigenverantwortung" in a workplace context. A literal translation would be self-responsibility but I've also seen ...
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3
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Personification in translations ("sun" in particular): gender change issues
How are personifications that change the gender correctly handled if the target language is English?
The question arised when a colleague wanted to translate the following (German) sentence:
"Die ...
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Idiom for “pretending to like someone when you actually hate them”
I’m trying to translate a Vietnamese proverb into English, and I couldn’t find an idiom or proverb in English that provides an exact match with my Vietnamese one.
The Vietnamese one goes as follows: “...
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What is a more contemporary expelling of this excerpt from Turner? [closed]
The following quote is by Turner (1509 – 1568), and to me, the spelling is incomprehensible. If the passage is re-written using spelling rules closer to those rules used in the present day, then how ...
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1
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Idiomatic expressions for falsity pt. 3: the guesser falsity - Translation of Spanish: ‘mandar fruta’
Introduction
According to correspondence theory, if you say or think something that does not correspond to reality then you have said something that is false. While this is an obvious concept learned ...
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Idiomatic expressions for falsity pt. 2: the sophist falsity - Translation of Spanish: ‘versear’ or ‘chamuyar’
Introduction
According to correspondence theory, if you say or think something that does not correspond to reality then you have said something that is false. While this is an obvious concept learned ...
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4
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286
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Idiomatic expressions for falsity: the misconception falsity - Translation of Spanish: ‘la re flasheé’
Introduction
According to correspondence theory, if you say or think something that does not correspond to reality then you have said something that is false. While this is an obvious concept learned ...
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15
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Idiomatic word/expression for someone ‘who has no feeling for the game’ - Translation of Spanish ‘pechofrío’
I'm having trouble translating the expression pechofrío (pecho frío, ‘cold chest’) from Spanish—specially Argentinian Spanish, I don't know if it's used in other countries. It means:
s. masc. Persona ...
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1
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Word for dangerous semi-knowledge, equivalent of German "gefährliches Halbwissen" [duplicate]
In German, there is a phrase like "dangerous semi-knowledge" gefährliches Halbwissen. Wiktionary definition:
a degree of superficial knowledge that becomes dangerous or deceptive because it ...
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Idiom for Spanish ‘no escupas para arriba’ (i.e., ‘be careful with the harm you do, it could come back at you’)
In Spanish, there's the expression ¡no escupas para arriba! (literally ‘don't spit upwards!’), which is used for example in counter-reprimanding or counter-criticizing purposes—although there are many ...
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0
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71
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The correct translation of Sıkbaç
There is an old dish in middle east culture. It is called as "Sıkbaç" in Turkish. It consists of lamb, vegetables, and various spices.
I have a translation work Turkish to English. DeepL ...
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0
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Explaining how to translate spanish "Ya" (already vs just vs ...) [closed]
I asked my coworker to fix something in a program. When he fixed it, he replied with, "I already fixed it." -- this wasn't intentionally misleading, but was an incorrect translation of &...
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19
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Idiom for frustrating someone else's plans by taking what the other person wanted in the first place
There's an idiom in Argentina translated roughly as "to sleep someone" (dormir a alguien), which is used when someone frustrates the plans of someone else by taking what the other person ...
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