26 Comments
Agreed बोलना might be used in Hindi for this, but in English you'd say "say something"
The English sentence is ungrammatical. You can't "speak something" unless the "something" is a language. Please add the option to flag incorrect English sentences.
You can do this: in the options when you report a sentence, you can tick the box labelled 'The English sentence/The "correct sentence" is unnatural or has an error.'
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Sadly, this doesn't always appear as option, as in this case. There was only an option to report the Hindi as unnatural.
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I think it only shows up if you answer with something that's marked wrong.
The literal definition of bolna is to speak, so I'm fairly sure it's correct. However, of course I understand what you're trying to say here. "Speak something" sounds completely wrong in the English language; nobody says that. You could always substitute the verb "kehena" in such instances but I'm pretty sure either way in Hindi no matter if you use bolna or kehena in a case like this it's interpreted the same way.
Translating is conveying meaning, not just replacing one word from one language to another in a different language. The only correct answer here should be "Say something", because that is what कुछ बोलो means in natural English. I would also like the option to flag incorrect English sentences added even when I have supposedly answered them 'correctly' (meaning: literal).
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Agreed. This is very clear in French duo: yesterday I got the phrase 'Qu'est-ce que tu as?' Literally that's 'What do you have?' but if you translate it as that you get it marked wrong because that's not how it's used - the answer is 'What's the matter with you?'
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A French native speaker here. "Qu'est-ce que tu as ?" can have different meanings depending on context, but "what do you have?" should be accepted as a possible translation (e.g. "What do you have in your bag?" = "Qu'est-ce que tu as dans ton sac ?"). "What's the matter with you?" is another possible translation, for instance when someone seems ill, tired, worried... you can ask him/her: "Qu'est-ce que tu as ?"
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Ok, maybe that wasn't the best example, but I was trying to make a point about the nature of translation.
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I always feel in these cases that what's needed is an expanded definition of the term, eg. bolna usually means 'to speak', except in the case of examples such as this, when it means 'to say'. That's surely a more useful approach to the art of translation than grammar-compromising semantic rigidity.
The more i get into hindi, tje more i understand why the indian people speek english as they do.
This is with any language pair. You can gain insights into how the other language works by paying attention to the quirks of how speakers of that language speak your language.
I like doing that too; hearing blended English (blendglish?) actually helps me start grasping the syntax of the new language, well still being able to understand the content in my native language.
It's called "L1 (i.e., 1st-language) interference"--whichever language you first trained your verbal communication skills in shapes your comprehension of how you learn other languages, and so you tend to fall back into the most familiar patterns when faced with uncertainty in a less familiar language.
Spanish lets you drop pronouns because the subject can be inferred by verb conjugation, so "no speak English", because it's a word-for-word calque of no hablo ìngles. Phrases like "long time no see" and "no go" apparently come from Chinese laborers and how, where English adds a "null subject" (e.g., the "it" in "it's funny you say that"), Chinese just drops the subject, so "[it's been a] long time [and I have] not seen you" or "[it does] not go."
It goes both ways, too--apparently Russians poke fun at the speech of English-L1s by adding быть to every sentence, since English uses "to be" as an auxiliary verb for the present progressive tense, while Russian has no present progressive and drops the "to be" copula in the present tense.
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I was in a four-year relationship with a native Marwari speaker. My study of Hindi (which bears many grammatical similarities to Marwari) didn't really help me to communicate with him in his own language, but it did help me to make a lot more sense of the way he spoke (self-taught) English.
Interesting, I never heard that one, even though I like to have some pun/fun with confusion yesterday/tomorrow, and drink/smoke cigarettes, or in Bengali eat tea, drink fish :D I think the most apparent of Hinglish is "only" for ही, "It's there only" for "वह यहाँ ही है", etc.
This is again Hinglish. I'm guessing that Hindi has one word that covers both English "say" and "speak".
In English this could only be "Say something!"
To the rest of everyone else's comments on the ungrammaticality/ awkwardness of the English translation of this phrase, I would like to point out that another perfectly acceptable (and more closely-translated) option would be "speak some." For example, if you find out that someone you are speaking with knows another language that you would like to hear a sample of, you could say "speak some" (I think the problem is not necessarily with the verb, but with the pronoun- in English, the verb "speak" collocates only with the pronoun "some" not "something"- so while "do some(thing)," "take some(thing)," "eat some(thing)" etc. all sound fine with either "some" or "something," "speak" is only "speak some"- if I understand correctly, Hindi just uses कुछ for both meanings- there is little difference after all).
I can follow what you are saying, but I think in that case the Hindi translation would be different. For example: "Speak some (Hindi)!" would become कुछ हिन्दी बोलो and not just कुछ बोलो.
My friends say something like "kuch suna do" which I think means like "tell something"? Like, an example conversation (sorry this is with Urdu speakers, maybe that is the difference) is "Aap sunao?" "Kuch nai." "Kuch tow suna do."
Sorry if this is totally incoherent! If so just ignore. :)
The example conversation you gave would occur in Hindi as well so there's literally no difference or trouble understanding. In English, "bolo" would translate to say/speak/tell and "sunao" is... like recite??? It's hard to translate the difference because they basically just mean the same thing BUT I do know "sunao" or "suna do" is also said to someone who is about to say some lines of poetry or sing. Perhaps, if you like etymology, you can find out if the two words have difference influences (Sanskrit, Persian, or others). "Sun" means to hear so "sunao" means to make someone hear or listen. There's no difference apart from the way they're asking for the other to say something. Your conversation went like: [1.] "Aap sunao?" (formal) You recite (to us). [2.] "Kuch nahi." It's nothing. [3.] "Kuch toh suna do." Recite something. Now, when I replace the word, it goes like: [1.] "Aap bolo?" (formal) You say (it to us). [2.] "Kuch nahi." It's nothing. [3.] "Kuch toh bol do." Say something.
"Say something" is more correct, but you might be able to get away with "speak some"
