Google now has an online translator for Lithuanian-English and English-Lithuanian. I carried out the same test as I did for another online translation service I wrote about in an earlier post. Let's take a look at the results:
English: you can see how good my Lithuanian is.
Translator: jūs galite pamatyti, kaip geras mano lietuvių yra.
Real Lithuanian: jūs galite pamatyti, kokia gera mano lietuvių kalba.
It's probably unrealistic to expect miracles from online translators. After all, any significant developments would make my efforts as a translator or interpreter pretty much redundant. People probably use these online translators to get the gist of the foreign language text. People don't necessarily need a perfect translation. I had a go at translating part of a post from Tomas' blog, but the translator came back with rubbish:
"Patį pirmą kartą keliaudamas atgal į Lietuvą taip pat važiavau anksti ryte, bet po bemiegės nakties, be hostelio, šaltą žiemą, neturėdamas planų Berlyne. Galiausiai miegojau rytinėj stoty tarp bomžų. Šiandien turėtų būti geriau."
"Very first time, traveling back to Lithuania also drove early in the morning, but after sleepless night, without a hostel, cold winter, without having the plans in Berlin. Finally, the sleep stations in the eastern bomžų. Today should be better."
I was in a seminar about learning languages from scratch and the professor made an interesting remark. He said that you can only be fluent in a language when the reader or listener has to do little or no work to be able to understand you. Obviously Google has a long way to go.
Created: 2008-09-26 20:18,
Tags: Lithuanian,
Comments: 0
OK, so I'm still trying to keep up with Lithuanian. It really does feel like an uphill struggle sometimes. I wrote this text after completing the first four chapters of my textbook and reading a text on Lithuanian money. I wrote it all myself and got Tomas to check it. There were some stupid case ending mistakes. He also corrected some stylistic problems. But I do not want to post texts that have mistakes and I want to post something worth reading at the same time. I feel bad sometimes for taking pointers from Tomas, but a. if I don't then I won't be able to write good Lithuanian and understand why it's good and b. as long as I understand why it's wrong, then I don't see a problem with him checking over it and me correcting it.
So here's the text. Feel free to comment on it.
Apie Angliją – Anglijos pinigai
Jūs žinote, kaip vadinasi pinigai Anglijoje. Smulkios monetos – tai pensai (išskyrus vieno ir dviejų svarų), o popieriniai banknotai – svarai. Bet ar žinote, kieno portretai yra ant popierinių pinigų? Matome garsius Jungtinės Karalystės žmones.
Penki svarai: vienoje pusėje Elžbietos Fri, žymios kalėjimų sistemos reformatorės, visuomenės reformatorės, filantropės portretas. Kitoje (kaip ant visų pinigų) Jungtinės Karalystės karalienės Elžbietos II portretas.
Dešimt svarų: Čarlzas Darvinas, anglų gamtininkas, kuris parašė knygą „Rūšių Klimė“ apie evoliuciją ir natūralią atranką. Šioje pusėje taip pat kolibrio atvaizdas.
Dvidešimt svarų: škotų ekonomisto ir moralės filosofo Adamo Smito portretas.
Penkiasdešimt svarų: nesu mačiusi penkiasdešimties svarų banknoto....bet pagal Vikipediją ant jo yra Jonas Houblonas, pirmasis Anglijos banko valdytojas.
Created: 2008-01-30 20:55,
Tags: languages,
learning,
Lithuanian,
Comments: 5
I can't believe it! HEL LOOKS is exhibiting in Vilnius from 25th January until 20th February. Asta (my Lithuanian friend/penpal) and I were discussing how cool this would be in August last year. She said she wanted to persuade the creators of HEL LOOKS to come over to Vilnius and exhibit their photos. I really want to know if they came of their own accord or whether she had a hand in it. Well, either way, I'm pleased because she will be happy. I'm a little bit disappointed though because I won't get to see it. The next surprise I'm waiting for is for Asta to start her VIL LOOKS :)
Also some other great news: Alina Orlova has released her first album. Go here for a sample. I can't really tell you anything more about her music. My words won't be able to describe her talent well enough.
I'm still fighting my one woman battle against the Lithuanian language. Taking it one step at a time. Came across a Lithuanian scientific, literary and cultural journal called Lituanus and this article about participles. Scary!! If you want to find out about Lithuania in more detail then they have a comprehensive back catalogue of articles covering all sorts of weird and wonderful topics.
Created: 2008-01-28 17:53,
Tags: art,
fashion,
Lithuania,
Lithuanian,
music,
Vilnius,
Comments: 0
I've been learning Lithuanian seriously for one week now. I really wanted to make some progress instead of just being able to say "labas". So here's a letter I wrote (replying to an example letter in my textbook). It's all my own work and I'm really pleased with what I've achieved:
Sveikas, Tomai.
Ačiū tau už laišką. Labai malonu su tavimi susipažinti. Aš esu studentė filologė universitete. Aš kalbu angliškai. Dar rusiškai ir vokiškai. Aš noriu labai kalbėti lietuviškai. Mano šeima yra maža: aš, sesė, mama ir tėtis. Mes gyvename Blakburne. Tai nedidelis miestas šiaurėje Anglijos. Čia gyvena taip pat daug lietuvių...
Mano sesė visai aukšta ir gera. Jos vardas Nina. Šiuo metu ji mokinė, o ateityje nori studijuoti Medicinos akademijoje. Mano mama yra mokytoja. Ji labai linksma ir dosni. Mano tėtis niekur nedirba: jis pensininkas. Tačiau jis buvo direktorius. Mano tėtis kartais irzlus...Jis mėgsta skaityti knygas. Aš galvoju, kad mes paprastai gyvename įdomiai ir linksmai.
O kaip tu gyveni?
Parašyk. Laukiu tavo laiško. Lik sveikas.
Anna
Created: 2008-01-19 19:45,
Tags: languages,
learning,
Lithuanian,
Comments: 2
I found this Soviet New Year card after January 1st, but I thought, hey, I can post it on the Russian Orthodox New Year. That is today, by the way! Yes, it probably is a bit wrong as religion was more or less banned during Soviet times, but let's not get too deep here, I just like Santa riding a rocket. Not as environmentally friendly as reindeer, granted, but now we know how all the Soviet children got their presents in just one night... :)
I got such a surprise when I got home from a dull day at work. A lovely (and heavy!) parcel from my Lithuanian friend. So thanks :) She gave me some encouragement to get on with learning Lithuanian along with some reading material, namely the very interesting (at least the graphics hehe) pravda magazine.
Created: 2008-01-14 21:01,
Tags: life,
Lithuanian,
post,
Russian,
Comments: 0
Just found this English to Lithuanian online translator via the Baltic times. It seems to be the first of its kind due to the fact that Lithuanian is a relatively small language (but an official EU language). I'm not sure how much work there is left to do on it, but it seems to have problems with basic sentences, for example:
English: you can see how good my Lithuanian is.
Translator: jūs galite pamatyti, kaip geras mano lietuvių kalba.
Real Lithuanian: jūs galite pamatyti, kokia gera mano lietuvių kalba.
I also hope they can make a Lithuanian to English version too. It will be much more useful from my point of view as the language is still more or less incomprehensible.
Created: 2008-01-09 20:16,
Tags: language,
lithuanian,
translation,
Comments: 3
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