Emilie,
A translation would be welcome not only by Linda and myself, but I suspect by many others. While I am completely bilingual, I am by no means biliterate on an academic level. My first language and education through Master's Degree is in English. When I come across long messages in Spanish, I'm sure I miss important information because I don't have the time/patience with the formalities and flowery language to refer to a dictionary, and only scan for relevant names and places. Again, a to the point translation would be welcome. Alice

--- auntyemfaustus@hotmail.com wrote:

From: "Emilie Garcia"
To:
Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] Babelfish Translation
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:37:00 -0700

Linda,

I think there are some services where you can copy and paste what you want translated, and they will have a trained translator do an exact translation in good proper English, but you have to wait for them to get back to you. Some of them also want to charge you for the service.

I don't speak Spanish myself (can't think fast enough on my feet to respond), but I do pretty good in reading it and other languages like French, Italian, Portuguese which are similar. I do need to use the English-Spanish dictionary for the occasional word. You might also e-mail Tomas Alejandro and ask him to send you privately an English translation. I have seen the messages he posted to the genealogy message boards in English, and they were very good, probably better than I can post them in Spanish. (Te das cuenta, Tomas Alejandro?) He apologizes for his English, but he doesn't need to.

He is highly educated, and I notice that like most educated people in Mexico he takes 10 words to say what a less educated person would say in less. Anyway, that is the way it sounds to me. His style is highly formal, as it is amongst most proper users of the Castellan language in Mexico. It is a very flowery language, full of proper introductions, taking leave, compliments, etc. We Americans are very blunt and terse by comparison. I was once told by our Mexican translator at work that we Mexican-Americans were very rude, that we would walk in an exam room and not introduce ourselves, shake hands, or not make small talk to put the patient at ease, etc. Americans don't do that. In Mexico, the various classes are very polite to each other, I think that is the way they keep their distance, by being very formal. I hope I don't get any stink here; it is just my opinion.

I will send a private e-mail to you with my interpretation (not a literal translation) of what Tomas Alejandro said in his e-mail, and it won't be perfect, but it will be an enormous improvement over Babelfish, which I never use due to the substitutions of words that don't make any sense. I am willing to interpret for you anytime you wish. And you are not illiterate, like you said.

Saludos desde Port Orchard, Washington,

Emilie

----- Original Message -----
From: Linda R Romero
To: general@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 7:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] General Digest, Vol 9, Issue 17

I have tried Babelfish translations and as an example I have come up
with the following translation of the message below. Does anyone
have a better method of translating? This loses me. I'm sure no one
is talking about a tapeworm.

Hello Ricardo: It is an enormous taste that you write to me and
knowledge that we share such I interest, on gelealogia familiar and
our beloved town the Valley of Guadalupe, Jalisco. You say that you
were not born alli like I, cuentame to me where you were born and in
where you live and to that you dedicate yourself at the moment.
Thanks also for genealogiua that you found, apparently are what the
project of arbol commands to i myself to the a genealogico world-
wide, does or like 6 or 7 a?os, that you raises it as if outside a
project outside economico interest and which is going to be available
publicamente, I send to them what tapeworm investigated in that time,
with great ilusion of which in truth it was an open data base
publicamente, but so seems that that is not possible and the
economico interest is always followed, and all those data that
command (and surely asi did it with much but people) now estan in a
private data base and if you want to accede to her you must pay, with
the due respect which little mmmm, take advantage of the good faith
mia and of other people to become rich, I hope that although it is
have the desencia to give to my data like author of the investigation
and envio of those data, you...

Please, a little help for the illiterate.

Linda