Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 8

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March 8

Spanish language

Hello. I've noticed that even though the Spanish preterite (hacer->yo hice) corresponds in form to the English simple past (do->I did) and the Spanish imperfect (hacer->yo hacía) to the English (I was doing), there seems to be a difference in use. What are the differences, or, where do we use the English preterite but the Spanish use the imperfect, and vice versa? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 01:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

English does not distinguish the preterite from the imperfect. I was doing is past continuous rather than imperfect per se. I think you can translate that directly into Spanish as estabo haciendo or some such. --Trovatore (talk) 03:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Or even estaba haciendo. -- the Great Gavini 04:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

My Spanish is basically gotten by figuring out the Italian, and then applying the regular changes from Italian to Spanish. I apparently missed that one. (In Italian it would be stavo facendo.) --Trovatore (talk) 04:59, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Not a native Spanish speaker, but basically, Spanish-speakers often use the imperfect where English-speakers would use the past continuous (also called the "past progressive"), even though Spanish also has a past continuous. So while Yo estaba haciendo is a word-for-word translation of "I was doing," Spanish-speakers will often say Yo hacía instead. I suppose the past continuous may be helpful when it's necessary to disambiguate, as in: Usualmente, yo estudiaba en la biblioteca cuando vivía en Montevideo, pero estaba estudiando en mi casa cuando sentí el terremoto porque la biblioteca estaba cerrada. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 06:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

To clarify your question then: When does English simple past ≠ Spanish preterite and when does English past continuous ≠ Spanish imperfect? I think one case is when you have a verb that describes a fixed state in the past, such as with the verb "to be": for the Spanish "Yo era un estudiante", "Él no estaba en casa", we would say "I was a student", "He wasn't home", not "I was being a student", "He wasn't being home". Lesgles (talk) 05:59, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't exactly speak Spanish, but looking at some grammatical explanations on the web, its use of the imperfect seems to be similar to that found in most languages that have an imperfect/preterite distinction (apart from the existence of the continuous tenses). Based on this, and from the perspective of a native speaker of such a language who had to learn English tense usage, I guess the most striking case where the imperfect does not correspond to English past continuous but instead to the English past simple would be when it expresses a habitual, repeating action in the past (as in "I played football every day when I was a kid") or a prolonged condition (as in "I loved him dearly", "I thought that it was true", "I had many books"). English groups such habitual past actions with perfective actions, while most languages with an imperfect/preterite distinction group habitual past actions with continuous actions. Basically it's like this:

1. When you're talking about a single completed action in the past (I bought the book): "I/P languages" use the preterite and English uses the past simple.

2. When you're talking about a continuous process in the past (I was reading the book): "I/P languages" use the imperfect and English uses the past continuous.

3. When you're talking about a habitual/repetitive process (I often bought books) or a prolonged condition/situation in the past (I loved books; I had many books): "I/P languages" have the imperfect and English uses the past simple.

Since I can't prove my assertions with Spanish examples of my own, here are some Spanish examples of the three cases above taken from this site (I don't think that this violates copyright; if someone does, feel free to delete it):

Case 1. Ayer escribí tres cartas. = "Yesterday I wrote three letters."

Case 2. Yo leía cuando entró mi papá. = I was reading when my papa entered. (Spanish may also be able to use the past continuous in this case, I don't know)

Case 3. Las señoras siempre charlaban por las mañanas. = The ladies always chatted (or "would always chat") in the mornings. Ramón tenía miedo de hablar en público. = Ramón was afraid to speak in public.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 12:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Use of "would" in AmE

According to a footnote at English verbs:

"Pearson Longman, Longman Exams Dictionary, grammar guide: It is possible to use would in both clauses in US English but not in British English: US: The blockades wouldn't happen if the police would be firmer with the strikers. Br: The blockades wouldn't happen if the police were firmer with the strikers."

Could any AmE speakers here confirm this? Is such use of "would", as in the "would be firmer" sentence, accepted as grammatically correct in all levels of AmE? 86.176.213.145 (talk) 03:35, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Both forms are unexceptional in American English. Whether the first is used in British English I can't say - they have different ways of handling subjunctive-like constructions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not too bad in informal speech, but it's clearly inferior in writing. --Trovatore (talk) 03:51, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The question for me is whether (some) British speakers would say "should be firmer" or similar to avoid the "were". — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I am a BrE speaker, and "should be firmer" in that context sounds strange to me. Occasionally one hears the "would be firmer" version in BrE, but it's considered incorrect by people who care about such things. I've always assumed it was technically incorrect in AmE too -- no matter how common it might be -- until I read the quote above. 86.176.213.145 (talk) 03:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

As a confirmed BritEngLinguist, I'd say that were firmer is the only way I'd phrase it (not that I would, I'm more likely to support the strikers ;-) ) AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:59, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I hear a slight difference, in the following way. Say that there is a domestic argument, and some man's wife says

He wouldn't do that if you were a real father

or says

He wouldn't do that if you would be a real father

There is a slight difference of connotation between those, I think. The former is more a statement of fact: "if you were a real father, but you aren't." The latter is more of an admonition: "if you would only start being a real father." Replacing that "would" phrase with something like "if only you were to start being a real father" would sound stilted to my ear, not natural. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that sounds right. Here the would, rather than marking the conditional mood as usual, is I think the counterfactual subjunctive of will in the sense of "exercise volition". --Trovatore (talk) 04:11, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I did a search on google and there are 11 million hits for "if you would only" and only 1.8 million for "if you were only to". — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm an American English speaker, and to me using "would" in the if-clause sounds extremely bad, bordering on the ungrammatical. It's something I hear Germans do a lot when they speak English, and (if they're close friends of mine and will put up with it) I always correct them when they do. The only exception is when the if-clause is semantically a request, as in "if you would be so kind". —Angr (talk) 06:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm an American English speaker as well. I hear and see the if-clause would (ICW?) often. It doesn't strike me as ungrammatical, but I'm doubtful that my grammar preferences and prejudices are all that flawless and logical. ICW can also occur as a contraction: "I'd go to Detroit if my boss'd let me off." I would say more if you'd read it, but you won't. --- OtherDave (talk) 09:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Those examples sound perfectly unexceptionable. But take cases in past tense: "I would (or I'd) have gone to Detroit if my boss would have let me off" - yuchh! I much prefer "I would have gone to Detroit if my boss had let me off". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 10:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

OtherDave's "I'd go to Detroit if my boss'd let me off" in fact seems to be a contraction of "...if my boss had let me off" rather than "...if my boss would have let me off". Pais (talk) 13:55, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

US English speaker here. I see another distinction between "...if the police would be firmer..." and "...if the police were firmer..." The "were" case is strictly talking about the past, while the "would be" case can apply both to the past and future. Thus, it implies that you want a change in future actions based on the results of the previous action. StuRat (talk) 21:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

No, that's not right, Stu. Your confusion stems from the subjunctive being little taught these days, even though it is far from the dead thing many seem to think it is. "If the police were firmer .." is definitely not past tense indicative, but future subjunctive. The past tense subjunctive would be "If the police had been firmer ...". The versions we often see, "If the police would be firmer ...", and "If the police would have been firmer ..." are non-standard constructions supposedly denoting the future and the past subjunctive respectively. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Jack, you're talking about formal grammatical rules, and possibly British English ones at that. It might surprise you to know, but I rarely use such rules to determine the meaning and nuances of a sentence. :-) StuRat (talk) 04:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

My initial reaction was "this is just wrong, in American English as well", but the discussion has brought out a nuance that I don't recall having thought about explicitly. It's clearly substandard to say If I would be a rich man, I'd buy you that, which is a construction one sometimes hears and is the one that I was thinking of.

But if the police would be firmer is arguably different, because their firmness is under their control. Arguably this one is an extension of if you would be so kind as to open this jar for me. As I said above, the would here is, I think, from the will of volition, as opposed to the will of future tense. --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Quick searches in corpora: "If I would be" in the BNC gives 9 hits, but 8 of them are after "ask", "wonder" or "know" which is a different construction, and the ninth is unclear: it's possible it's an example of what we're talking about, but I think it's another "ask". In COCA the phrase gets 104 hits, of which I counted 11 as being relevant to this question (the great majority, again, are with verbs of asking, knowing, verifying). --ColinFine (talk) 00:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You might want to clean up those links, as the first leads to a large disambiguation page and the second leads to the wrong article, entirely. StuRat (talk) 04:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops! Thanks, fixed. --ColinFine (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Feet tangled up

What does the term "feet tangled up" mean? This is with respect to the fact that a person's feet are tangled up. aniketnik 09:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aniketnik (talk • contribs)

Two possibilities - one being their feet are tangled up in or with something, such as a cord lying on the floor. The other possibility, for instance that "they got their feet tangled up", would mean that, through clumsiness, they tripped over themselves (or were in danger of doing so). Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)It could mean feet tangled up in something, e.g. they have string or rope wrapped around their feet to restrict their movement. Or it can refer to a situation (e.g. in sports) where your feet are in the wrong place and you "trip over your own feet" or stumble or lose your balance or badly miss a kick. Examples of the former usage[1][2][3] and the latter[4][5]. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

In what language is this song?

The song here: [6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.69.156.116 (talk) 10:11, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Hebrew One way to identify a written language online is to copy and paste some into Google and ask it to translate. You will then see the original language identified - if Google has it listed. Sorry :-( Richard Avery (talk) 10:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

This has been asked before quite recently. I remember because nobody was able to listen due to the missing plugin, unless they used Internet Explorer. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The language used is not Hebrew. It obviously comes from a Hebrew site, but the song itself is in a different language. Maybe Slavic? ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{spik ʌp!} 11:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the text is not a transcription of the song. The text seems to be a synopsis for a play that this site is advertising. The song is not even mentioned. I have not listened to it because I am not loading up IE just for one page - sorry. There is a 'Contact Us' link on that page, so perhaps the OP can ask them directly (Here is Google Translate's English version of the page so you can find the link more easily). For what it's worth, the music is by Ori Vidislavski. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Slavic it isn't, definitely. It has certain softness of Russian, but those long schwas and [w]s are very un-Slavic. I don't know the answer, though. No such user (talk) 13:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ukrainian has [w]s. No long schwas, though. Pais (talk) 13:18, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Long schwas? Could it be Romanian? 80.123.210.172 (talk) 19:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't play the clip. Firefox can't figure out what plugin is necessary to do so. —Angr (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not too hard to pick out the file from the HTML. The part that says param name="URL" value="Data/ShowsTrilers/rohale mithatenet.wmv" gives most of it. Just escape the space as %20 and stick the www.lessin.co.il/ on the front of it, and you got a movie. MPlayer knows how to play it, if nothing else will. 67.162.90.113 (talk) 22:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand anything (the last words sound a little like "skonchona bayka", which I can imagine standing for "the fairy tale is over" in some East Slavic idiom), but it certainly does sound vaguely Slavic and there do seem to be some [w]s and [ɦ]s (or [ɣ]s?), so I wouldn't exclude Ukrainian or Belarusian. The "long schwas" could be [ɨ]s, which is consistent with Belarusian (although the Ukrainian [ɪ] can also sound like an [ɨ] to people more familiar with Russian such as myself). Since the film is presumably Jewish-themed, either of these would make sense very much indeed. All in all, I think the next move would be to ask some Ukrainian or Belarusian Wikipedian to give it a listen and see if they can understand anything.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It's neither Ukrainian nor Belarusian. Maybe some other Slavic language.--216.239.45.130 (talk) 05:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a Polish lullaby, "Na Wojtusia". The full text with an English translation can be found here: [7]. The verses are in a different order in the video, it's "Była sobie Baba Jaga...", then "Była sobie raz królewna..." and Baba Jaga again. You were right about the meaning of "skończona bajka" by the way. 46.134.138.165 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC).

Wow, thanks! I don't know if the OP will read this, but I'm glad that this mystery is finally solved. I don't know why the first /x/ sounded voiced to me, and all the /x/s sounded farther back than I would have expected, so I imagined /ɣ/ or /ɦ/ and consequently never gave the possibility of Polish a serious thought, although it was literally round the corner all the time - especially in view of the [w]s and the [ɨ]s! It's quite amazing how even speakers of closely related languages find it hard identify or understand each other in songs.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Translation from Farsi

Hello, I was just wondering what "haleto" means in English. Specifically, someone asked me about my "haleto". Thanks. Eiad77 (talk) 13:21, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

'Condition' or 'situation', maybe? 'How are you?' See Google Tr. . --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, thanks. Eiad77 (talk) 13:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

See also the Persian translations at wikt:how are you, many of which use حالت or related forms. Pais (talk) 13:52, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

haleto (حال تو) is actually two words, completely different from what Google Translator gives as حالت. It is a half sentence, meaning "your condition", with no verb. It has to be completed to mean "how are you". I think OP has heard -- or that 'someone' has uttered -- only the first part of the sentence. --Omidinist (talk) 16:34, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, the OP didn't say "someone said 'haleto' to me", he said "someone asked me about my 'haleto'", so he only reported part of the sentence here. Pais (talk) 16:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Which is what I assumed, and that is why I added the possibly 'fuller' translation of 'how are you' in. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Latin expression for "it's defined along the way"

Hello! I was wondering if you Wikipedians could help me out. :) I am searching for this two-word (I think) latin construct that denotes a practise that is not firmly set in stone. Like in judicial matters, you make the laws as you go - based on precedense and new evidence. Some states can also be described in this manner, presumably because parts of their culture is still in development. Can anyone lend a hand? Tongue? Thank you! 80.213.11.105 (talk) 18:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ad hoc, ex tempore, pro tem(pore), de facto? --Antiquary (talk) 18:43, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not Latin, but the two-word phrase for laws based solely on precedent is common law. StuRat (talk) 21:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Tentative? In flux? In a state of flux? Inchoate? A working model? Innovative, innovation? Bus stop (talk) 21:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

If you want a Latin phrase, decernitur in itinere. Marco polo (talk) 02:00, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

OP here! Seems I slightly misunderstood its meaning. The phrase is "sui generis" - unique, in a fashion. Thank you for your help! 80.213.11.105 (talk) 07:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Arabic translation

I have been doing some work here, trying to bring some conformity to the opening sentences of our articles about nations, following WP:PLACE. My question here involves the Saudi Arabia article. I'm sure we have editors fluent in Arabic here. Can anyone tell me if the written Arabic in the lede of that article translates simply "Saudi Arabia", or "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia"? I assume it is the latter, but I would like to be certain. Thank you. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I am by no means fluent in Arabic, but I can tell you that 'al mamlaka' means 'The Kingdom' here, so it would be the latter. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, it's the latter. Wrad (talk) 00:14, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both!! Joefromrandb (talk) 06:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's a bit more complicated. The Arabic name doesn't correspond 100% with the English. "Al Mamlaka al ʻArabiyya as Suʻūdiyya" means "the Saudi Arabian Kingdom" both "Arabic" and "Saudi" are adjectives in this case. If you remove "al Mamlaka" you remove the sole noun in the name. "Arabia" and "al ʻArabiyya" aren't the same word (Arabia is al-Jezira al-Arab in Arabic), so if you would call the place "al ʻArabiyya as Suʻūdiyya" you don't say "Saudi Arabia" but somehow the sort "the Saudi Arabicness". The more common informal name for Saudi Arabia in Arabic is just "as Suʻūdiyya". --Soman (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)