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Re: Cookbook

From:Irina Rempt <ira@...>
Date:Thursday, July 5, 2001, 19:13
On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, Justin Mansfield wrote:

> Anyway, something to worry about when translating recipes: different > languages handle cooking instructions differently. English uses the > imperative, French I would imagine uses the infinitive. I'm told that German > uses the subjunctive in the impersonal (mann soll... excuse my terrible > German grammar and orthography, as I have the Yiddish me' zol in mind ;) ), > and that Hungarian uses the first person!
Valdyan uses the second person singular in the present tense. Those forms are also used for the imperative but I prefer seeing it as descriptive: "you take... you put...".
> So... just keep all this mess in mind while you're translating your > recipes!
Perhaps we shouldn't translate the recipe, but paraphrase it to carry over the meaning: to end up with the same dish when you're finished. Irina -- Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay. irina@valdyas.org (myself) http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas

Replies

Padraic Brown <pbrown@...>
Dan Jones <feuchard@...>