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This is what happens when you mix a 7 hour livestream with Skype, alcohol, and a single joke that gets taken too far
Categories: News
Season 7 Episode 08 is Live!
It's the first (proper) show of 2013. Yey! So join us as TK, Felis, Xavier, and Hedgie all put the world to rights and moan about the last year. Maybe now Xavier's back, there might be a little more focus in tonight's show? Who knows? Head on over to the Listen page and use the links to listen in live, or scroll to the bottom of the page for our YouTube link and watch the madness unfold instead.
And don't forget you can join us in IRC, the details for which are on the Contact Us page. We're on from 8pm UK time, so come join us!
Categories: Podcasts
Artist Runs into a Language Barrier
Dear Papabear,
I'm a member of the art site DeviantArt, which as you know is one of the most popular art websites in the world. People from all sorts of countries go there. Because of this, you can't help but interact with a few dozen foreigners, and I have encountered a pitiful problem of a language barrier.
My DA isn't very popular or engaging, so I'm usually on my FA, and I only check back on DA every week or so. Recently I logged on to DA and found out I received a few good comments and notes from a person named Husk. At first I thought he was speaking in text speech, but as I browsed along his words... I simply couldn't understand anything. *derp*
I went to Husk's account and saw that he was born and raised in a country which had its own language. I concluded that he only had English as a second language and didn't practice it too well. I tried to say a little greeting back to Husk (in English), but it seems the poor guy has little idea what I'm saying, and I have little idea in what he's saying too. And it's rude to just tell him directly "I don't know what you're saying" and I don't trust Google Translate to try and talk to him in his native tongue.
So far, he hasn't been commenting anymore, but I don't really know how to respond to his old comments because I don't even know what he means (plus, two of the comments are questions).
What's a guy to do in a situation like this?
Sincerely,
Doc
* * *
Hi, Doc,
Thanks for your question. Papabear agrees that Google Translate can be rather clunky, though it can do well enough to get the point across. It’s when you try to express difficult, abstract concepts or use too many colloquialisms that Google takes a poop and gives you odd results. My first suggestion, then, would be to send a short, very short, message to your friend. I take it you figured out which language he speaks? There are many online translators out there that can handle simple phrases such as “thank you for the compliment”; “sorry, I don’t speak [insert language]”; and so on.
You could go the extra mile and purchase software. One I know of is called Babylon (http://translation.babylon.com) which, I believe has a free online version. Other good software packages are Power Translator and Promt. If you find yourself dealing more and more with people from other countries, it might be worth getting some software, though in your case you probably don’t deal with foreigners often enough to justify it. Should that change, it is an option.
Going a bit further, perhaps you could locate a friend or acquaintance who speaks the language and he or she could help you out by translating back and forth.
And those are about your only options. Depends on how often you deal with the situation how you might wish to finally resolve it.
Good luck!
Papabear
I'm a member of the art site DeviantArt, which as you know is one of the most popular art websites in the world. People from all sorts of countries go there. Because of this, you can't help but interact with a few dozen foreigners, and I have encountered a pitiful problem of a language barrier.
My DA isn't very popular or engaging, so I'm usually on my FA, and I only check back on DA every week or so. Recently I logged on to DA and found out I received a few good comments and notes from a person named Husk. At first I thought he was speaking in text speech, but as I browsed along his words... I simply couldn't understand anything. *derp*
I went to Husk's account and saw that he was born and raised in a country which had its own language. I concluded that he only had English as a second language and didn't practice it too well. I tried to say a little greeting back to Husk (in English), but it seems the poor guy has little idea what I'm saying, and I have little idea in what he's saying too. And it's rude to just tell him directly "I don't know what you're saying" and I don't trust Google Translate to try and talk to him in his native tongue.
So far, he hasn't been commenting anymore, but I don't really know how to respond to his old comments because I don't even know what he means (plus, two of the comments are questions).
What's a guy to do in a situation like this?
Sincerely,
Doc
* * *
Hi, Doc,
Thanks for your question. Papabear agrees that Google Translate can be rather clunky, though it can do well enough to get the point across. It’s when you try to express difficult, abstract concepts or use too many colloquialisms that Google takes a poop and gives you odd results. My first suggestion, then, would be to send a short, very short, message to your friend. I take it you figured out which language he speaks? There are many online translators out there that can handle simple phrases such as “thank you for the compliment”; “sorry, I don’t speak [insert language]”; and so on.
You could go the extra mile and purchase software. One I know of is called Babylon (http://translation.babylon.com) which, I believe has a free online version. Other good software packages are Power Translator and Promt. If you find yourself dealing more and more with people from other countries, it might be worth getting some software, though in your case you probably don’t deal with foreigners often enough to justify it. Should that change, it is an option.
Going a bit further, perhaps you could locate a friend or acquaintance who speaks the language and he or she could help you out by translating back and forth.
And those are about your only options. Depends on how often you deal with the situation how you might wish to finally resolve it.
Good luck!
Papabear
Episode 71 – Progressive
Author: admin Welcome to Episode 71! Kyo is still out on vacation – okay, most of him is – but we have his vagoo here with us to pontificate! In this week’s episode, Smokey rants about bad video game guides, Halfwit discusses womens’ rights in India, Isty talks about not ripping into people at their [...]
Episode 71 – Progressive
Categories: News
![[free stuff/art] Pay It Forward 2013 -- ShadraAvro's Journal -- Fur Affinity [dot] net](http://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/DY_o_3V-581gSX6B.jpg "[free stuff/art] Pay It Forward 2013 -- ShadraAvro's Journal -- Fur Affinity [dot] net")
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