13 Comments
35
Ah, that's tricky. As a native English speaker, I don't think we would ever say "Is it generally or only now?" I think we'd be more inclined to say something like "In general, or in just this case?"
Different strokes. As a native English speaker myself, I would put a comma in there and call it a day: "Is it generally, or only now?"
I would possibly do either, but in the second would say "just" instead of "only."
I get your explanations, but I wouldn't understand this English sentence, as a native speaker.
I think the approach is to give as main valid translation the one that matches more closely the wording and order of the words in danish. You are not learning English and this approach helps a lot in avoiding ambiguity. So you don't have to think about the best translation possible to English but the one closer in structure and wording to the Danish original sentence.
I see what you're saying but not understanding what the English version means is somewhat unhelpful when learning a new language.
True. I think we can't find the perfect translation when comparing two languages. More like we have to understand the background culture and the way people are expressing things. I'm not a native English speaker, for me it is more difficult to paraphrase Dansk into proper English. My native language is more similar to Dansk in term of structure, short and straightforward :)
I majored in an European foreign language in University and we always had to translate in a way that made sense in the translated language as well. We never translated literally if we cannot do it in a way that made sense.
In this case it asks for almost a literal translation, which as many English speakers have already commented, does not make sense in English. It's fine if this is just how this course is structured. It's a different way from what I'm used to but I can see why it is like this. If we had to do it the way I did in Uni, then learners would sometimes be required to memorise certain phrases, like this one, and nobody would get the question right the first time!
Walk into a shop during a christmas sale and you see a shirt you like on sale. Assistant comes to you and says "this shirt is excellent value" and you could ask "is that generally or only now?" With reference to the fact that its on sale. Works for me.
Perhaps it would be best to use this sentence in one of the other formats. The Engish needs to make sense.
