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- "ra'wI'wI' vItoy' 'e' vItIvbe…
"ra'wI'wI' vItoy' 'e' vItIvbe'."
Translation:I don't enjoy serving my commanding officer.
10 Comments
I remember looking this up early on in the course. The word ra' is the verb for "command" and thus ra'wI' essentially means, literally, "a person who commands". However, ra'wI' does not correspond to the military rank of "commander". For that, Klingon has the word la' (as in Riker la'). ra'wI', in contrast, really refers more to "commanding officer", which is what the course requires as the translation.
I will leave it to the experts to comment further.
The course had better accept commander, as that is the gloss given in The Klingon Dictionary. Your analysis is correct, but commander means one who commands, so it is a correct translation of ra'wI'.
I suspect it was marked wrong because he said like instead of enjoy. Like is parHa'; enjoy is tIv.
You are correct. The course does accept "commander" and also "CO", but does not accept "I don't like" since it has a subtle difference in meaning from "I don't enjoy" and there is a way to express each differently in Klingon.
I always assumed toy' meant serve in the sense of what a servant does, but does this mean it can also be used in the sense of serve in the military? Or is this sentence said by the Klingon equivalent of a steward?
It means both. toy'wI' means servant, one who serves, so toy' is what a servant does. But it's also used in canonical sentences like wo' toy'taHvIS Hegh 'e' tul Hoch tlhIngan To die while serving the Empire is the hope of every Klingon (TKW).
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I put " I don't enjoy to serve my commanding officer". Shouldn't that have been accepted?
I put " I don't enjoy to serve my commanding officer". Shouldn't that have been accepted?
No. "I don't enjoy to serve" is not correct English - it has to be "I don't enjoy serving".
