"Are you Mr. Brown?"
Translation:Ĉu vi estas Sinjoro Bruna?
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Hm, what's the best practice for translating names? I mean, I assume you would just keep the names the same way they're spelled in the original language when possible, even though it has foreign letters like "w." While there is a direct translation for the common adjective "brown," what if their name was something like "Wright"?
Someone asked about Adamo and Sofia so I asked the course authors about names. My suspicion was correct - since the framework provided by Duolingo to the course authors requires them to use a limited number of words (and to provide at least three sentences for each included word), every name you see in the course comes as a lost opportunity to learn a "real" word --- unless the name consists of real words such as we see above.
With that in mind, my advice to anybody working on the course is as follows.
- Always translate Adam/Adamo.
- Always spell Sofia with an F.
- Always translate any other name you see. Mark/Marko, Brown/Bruna, Sinjoro Floro/Mister Flower.
Does this apply in reverse as well? (should I translate Marko to Mark)
1320
I only know it from playwright and cartwright (one of my great-grandfathers was a cartwright), so it seems an ancient or poetic way of saying maker. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a worker skilled in the manufacture especially of wooden objects” and gives the combinations shipwright and wheelwright.
That's not really helpful here, is it? ☺
Thanks for your explanation about the technical boundary conditions!
It's not a coincidence that the consonants in work are W-R-K while the consonants in wright are W-R-Ght. The GH became silent but used to sound something like a K. Same thing for wrought iron. It's iron that has been worked.
"Lafitte" meant "the fixed", for "the fixed stone". It's about border stones, which have a fixed location. Thus, mr. Lafitte, or rather one of his forefathers, lived at the border stone. Or more likely, he came from a village "Lafitte", of which there are several in France, that came into existence around a border stone.
Since the framework provided by Duolingo to the course authors requires them to use a limited number of words (and to provide at least three sentences for each included word), every name you see in the course comes as a lost opportunity to learn a "real" word --- unless the name consists of real words such as we see above.
I learned French with Monsieur Lafitte and I have no idea what Lafitte means.