When we Turkish learners attempt a translation we are corrected by native Turkish speakers - which is what we are here for after all. However, in a lot of cases it might be that our translation would be understood but is just not a 'strong sentence' as Erdinc once described it here http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_27_5159. and Bod suggested there were these 5 'levels of correctness':

1. wrong and incomprehensible.
2. wrong but understandable.
3. gramatically correct but lingusitically awkward (weak)
4. totally correct (strong)
5. everyday colloquial terminology - linquistic fluency?

It would be helpful if the 'native' speaker could say whether or not the 'non-native' speaker's translation would actually make any sense to a Turk - we need to learn to communicate simply at first and then (hopefully) the more complicated grammatical construction will follow in time. Personally, I find it quite offputting when I attempt translations to see someone come in with something that looks so completely different - even changes in using words that are actually correct but that the Turkish person decided would look better in another way. However, many thanks to people like caliptrix, who explain the reasons for the changes very clearly.

This happens to me when I try to speak Turkish too -I appreciate and need correction but not so much that i am afraid to speak!! If I am talking to anyone (Turkish, German, Dutch, whatever) who I know doesn't speak English very well I try to use the simplest language possible not confusing them with long words and 'flowery' sentences but I find the Turkish people I know don't do this for me :-S

Some Turkish members on here have extremely good English and their English translations read very well but some others 'get the gist' and their English is understandable but not good at all. I think they might appreciate a native English speaker telling them where they are going wrong but without changing what they have said completely - so I am going to do this in future when I see 'weak' English translation! Hopefully this will be helpful to people wanting to improve their English - we are here to help each other.

İ've been wanting to write something similar for ages! Well done you! I saw a translation that read ' İ thinked' and İ thought yes it's understandable but incorrect-should İ say something or will they be offended at my correcting them?'
PS-sometimes İ'd like to correct the grammar and spelling of the English speakers too!!!

I think that is a wonderful idea. If people on this site are kind enough to help me speak Turkish correctly then it is only fair that we assist them to speak English correctly.

this is great because Im not an english native speaker and in this way I can improve my english and also learning turkish..double chances

I'm glad that this is now a sticky thread and that more users will read it and take notice.

One more request I would make. Please use 'I' not 'i'when it stands alone. How much longer does this take?

Great idea!! I too have been tempted to correct english grammar etc .. I believe that it helps not only the english native speakers but the turkish native speakers also!!

You have to be careful (and that's one 'l') whose grammar you are correcting.
( or should it be 'one has to be careful whose grammar one is correcting?)
Anyhooo,I PM several users who appreciate being corrected-others just take offence.
I was even told by a Turkish speaker that 'your' was a perfectly acceptable abbreviation for 'you're'!

One reason I like this forum, rather than others such as seslisözlük that I also am an active member of, is that people really are trying to learn, and are being respectful to each other.

Thank God that person only pm'ed you: they obviously didn't have the courage of their (wrong) convictions to post it.

Here we only tend to send corrections to translations if we know the person wants to learn, or if there is a big mistake that distorts the meaning of the translation. On seslisözlük Smart Alecs (as my mum would call them, these days we use a different A-word) send corrections to already good translations, up to a month later! Often the "correction" is wrong!

I also would request that the user would state when the translation is for song lyrics or poetry. I won't touch these with a barge pole! (too much poetic licence!)

It´s not fair!!! Yesterday I was corrected for writing kisa when it should have been kısa,then later there was a whole paragraph of translation E-T by a Turkish speaker with NOT ONE Turkish letter used. Where´s the justice?

I have a few Turkish friends who i chat with on msn and they dont mind at all if i correct the spelling of an english word they get wrong. I think its a question of how you actually write and correct the person. When you speak to someone the tone of your voice tells the person if you are being helpful, or making fun of their English or Turkish, which ever way round it be. But on here a lot of that is lost because you can only type and a lot could be and can be taken out of context and come across as been unhelpful and being ´picky´

Infact some of our Turkish friends on here write better grammer and type better english than i do, as you may have gathered from the above post haha

However i do find it rather cute and sweet, when a turkish friend does try to use a word in a certain context and its wrong, it does make me smile often, then they know when i correct them its not to embarrass them or make fun its to help so that they can get it right next time

Janette

In the case I was referring to it was not incorrect spelling it was a blatant disregard for the use of Turkish letters.

Hello everybody, I am new here & I like turkish & i want to learn it. I am perfect in english & its grammer & i liked the idea of exchanging corrections. hope to include me in this

Welcome - but if, as you say, you are perfect in English, I do hope your spelling of ´grammar´ was a typo

What a great idea LİR,i have just seen that thread today

Do we post the translations attempts here ?

Dear Turkish and English Learners.

It is great you all put the effort in learning a new language.  I have been watching the translations here for the last couple of days, and I really appreciate what you are doing.  the only comment I would make is, when you are translating something, please read the text and try to understand what it means, rather than looking up in the dictionary for every word and making a word to word translation..  If you understand what it says, than you will be able to express yourselves better.

Once a translator in Turkey, translated this as follows:

It´s raining cats and dogs             Kopekler ve kediler yagiyor.

While it meant it is raining heavily.

The other example is:

Head or tail?                     Kafa mi kuyruk mu?

We use it with different words in Turkish like       yazý mý tura mý?

Thanks a lot.

Merih

Sevgili arkadaslar,

Burda cok guzel bir ortam yaratmissiniz, ve ogrenmeye calistiginiz dili bu dili konusanlardan ogreniyorsunuz.  Zaman zaman onlara cevirilerinizle yardim etmek istiyorsunuz.  Ancak lutfen, ceviri yaparken tum cumleyi okuyup, ne demek istedigini anlamaya calisin.  Eger ne demek istedigini anlarsaniz, cok daha ve dogru bir sekilde ceviri yapabilirsiniz.  Kelimesi kelimesine ceviri yapinca anlamsiz seyler ortaya cikiyor.  Hatta yanlis ceviriler burda yardim isteyen arkadaslarin iliskilerinin yanlis kominukasyonlar uzerine kurulmasina sebep olabilir.  Deneme yapin, ama eger yaptiginiz ceviri anlamsiz geliyorsa, tekrar deneyin.. 

Iyi calismalar

Merih

Uzun zamandir yurtdisinda yasadigim ve Turkce klavye kullanmadan yasadigim icin aliskanlik olmus..  sanirim Sonunda benden bahsediyor.. daha dikkatli olmaya calisacagim.

I have been living overseas for some time, and without a Turkish keyboard, I am very much used to writing Turkish in English characters.  Sorry for the inconvenience.  I will try to be careful next times... Sorry Sonunda..

That´s sweet Merih and I appreciate your comments.

However,many users have only ´English´ keyboards but make the extra effort to use correct Turkish characters by using the facility for doing so available to us on the site.

I may be repeating myself, but I find no benefit in trying to learn new words,correct spelling etc. from native speakers who consistently type only English characters.

The Turkish characters are available underneath the ´Add Message to the Forum´ space - it is very easy to include them ýþðçöÝÞÐÇÖÜ (as you can see Admin has even kindly provided capital letters!)

Well, Sonunda and Lady in red, I realise lots of people might be using English keyboard, but what I said was getting used to writing Turkish without the Turkish characters using the English keyboard.  As the other person you are communicating with is a native speaker too, nobody gets bothered, and you start just ignoring the Turkish characters.  This is habit, and I already apologised for it.

The second thing is that, I am not up-to-date about internet ettiquettes, that´s why I simply did not realise writing in capitals would offend.. I forgot my capslock on, and I wrote everything in capitals..  and I apologised for that too..

But what I don´t understand is, why do you take it so personal?  I have not sent you a private message so far.  The only thing I did was to correct the translation..  But your replies quoting my name has been very mean. 

 1. I wasn´t offended - althought it is annoying - I was just doing my ´job´ as a mod and letting you know the rules

2. I didn´t mean to be ´mean´ it´s just that this is a Turkish Language Class - which means that Sonunda and I - and quite a number of others - are actually trying to learn Turkish or improve on what we already know and it is difficult when Turkish native speakers don´t use the correct letters - especially so for complete beginners.

.

"But what I don´t understand is, why do you take it so personal?"

Merih-I didn´t take anything ´personally´just as there was nothing meant personally against you.

 One more nice comment from dear Merih i agree with you again.

And i understand you Lady in Red....   You must not be made fearing of Turkish...

And hope i haven´t caused someone to get offended.

I sometimes try to teach how would be the best way as well...

I will be more careful afterwards and try to encourage you all

I think we should stop translating ´caným´!!

What is the literal translation of " yazý mý tura mý?´  

is it like "a piece of paper or a whole skein of paper?"

you see, I would have never guessed it means the same as ´heads or tails´

I do like to see both types of translations that are literal and those that are arranged because it actually helps me to see the different usages of the nouns or verbs and sentence constructions.

I just looked up ´yazý´ and one meaning is actually ´tail´ so that solves half the puzzle

hmm unfortunately ´yazý´ will not bring up the word tail in this site dictionary.  

If I reverse look up ´tail´ and yazý comes up 5th on the list of possibilities and here it is not comprehensible, for me anyway 

tail

5. çoð. yazý, madeni bir paranýn resimsiz yüzü.   <<<so, what does that mean??

That is telling you that ´yazýi usually refers to the sýde of a metal coýn wýthout a pýcture (i.e. ´head´ - therefore ´tail´

coðu = usually/mostly     maden = metal    resimsiz yüzü  = ´face´ without a picture

BTW you do sometimes need to ´reverse look up´ words to find them! 

Thank you kindly Lady in Red for you explanation, translation and time

çoð.  = coðu = usually/mostly  (çoðu) 

and thank you for the meaning of:  " çoð. "  as the dictionary firmly directs me to ´cog´ of which has a different meaning altogether. 

çoð.  = coðu = usually/mostly  (çoðu)

it is interesting what the subtle c and g ...to ç and ð  differences can make.

I hope I can ask a little help here as I didn´t know where else to turn for it. I have three passages of text and I have to translate them to English. If someone would find a few minutes to help me I´d be hugely thankful. The text I have to translate:

1.

Daha fazla gecikmeye|tahammül edemem...
Bir grup balżk vardżr.|Hepsi geciktirir.

2.

-Lütfen kuyrušuma basmaktan ēekinmeyin.

-Kesinlikle sincap.

-Evet sincap.

-Size karžż ēok mütežekkiriz
ki Foosah´larż kovaladżnżz.

3.

Sen dikkati fena halde|bozulmuž bir adamsżn.
yle mi? Öyle olmak istemiyorum.
Biliyorum kahraman olarak|ve ižin ēok sinir bozucu.
Ama ne olursa olsun bunun dżžżnda|kalman benim iēin ēok önemli.
Tatlżm ižle ilgili olarak...|-Ne?

Can anyone translate me the sentence "I was learning turkish all day"?

bütün gün türkçeyi ögreniyordum

my try

Thank you, but I think -yi isnt needed here, I wasnt sure about the verb, now it is clear, thank you

                ( yi ) olmadan                           turkçe ögreniyordum

This thread is not really for translation requests.  The point of my original post, in a nutshell, was to ask both native English and native Turkish speakers to take care with their grammar and spelling when posting and try to make sure to use the correct Turkish letters when writing in Turkish.  It was made a ´sticky´ in the hope that translators and would-be translators would read it!

If you need a translation you should start a separate thread in the Translation Forum   

I think this is wonderful helping each other out. I make mistakes in my own English i dont mind if i get corrected. I only wish i could learn faster in turkish language it seems like a turtle moving slow...Its hard for me to learn it but i got some words and some colores and some little basics that i have practice, but i want to know more...I need to practice everday and say it outloud in the house.

Lots of love to all

mjx

xoxox

stella

sen kýmsýn ya bak ben arasýra msn ye takýlýrým sený merak ediyorum kýsa bir süre içerisinde netten görüþe býlýrmýyýz

translate for me 

Thanks, I totally agree that this would be of great help for us, the learners!

And getting explanations can only help in understanding better.

why not just help them ?????

with their english or turkish..

as you may know there may be different several ways of saying the same sentence  depending on the person´s education level but in the end it will give you and idea but will not change the whole meaning at all.

so it is nice to exchange views and different translation methods both in turkish and english...

let´s just give all what we can without hurting anyone´s feelings as some people may easil get hurt ..

I know this is an old thread but it explains some of the things that have been annoying me recently. If you are a new member to Turkish Class this should be compulsory reading. I think it may have escaped the notice of some users who have joined in the past few months.

Native Turkish speakers are not changing the words just to make it "sound better" when they correct someone. Don´t forget they are native speakers, have grown up exposed to family and friends  and other native Türkish speakers, learned it in school, and fromTV, Radio and life in Turkey.

Also one has to remember that while Turkish is a phoenetical language, it also can´t always be translated to/from English verbatim. So when they do suggest a different way of saying or writing, its because that way is how to "think" in Turkish of how to say or write it, as sentence structure is different than in English. Just a thought.

Please correct my English when i do a mistake and trust me completely when i correct your mistakes. There is no reason to get offended.Actually we should be happy. Being corrected can upset some people but learning the language better should always come first.

Eventhough i get very high results from English tests, I still don´t trust my English. I think too much Turkish and my grammer is not brilliant. I accept this and still want to do my best.

Hi ,

Good , they might appritiate to native Englsih,

so I am going to do this in future when I see Me  Weak In English translation!

Hopefully,  this will be helpful For Me to improve their English - we are here to help each other.

Thanks

Translation

hello, im new here and i dont know where i should or how to post any thing. i need a translation of something, how can i say "good morning my angel, have a nice day, keep smiling, youre beautiful and dont stop thinking of me" , "im sorry if sometimes i seem mean or i hurt you, its just me and my moods! try to understand my weirdness" in turkish?

 Günaydın benim meleğim. Güzel bir gün geçir, gülmeye devam et, çok güzelsin .Beni düşünmeyi bırakma. Bazen kötü davranıyor gibi görünsem de ya da seni incitsem de ben ve ruh halim böyle işte. Tuhaflığımı anlamaya çalış.

Can someone please translate "do your friends know you talk to me?" and "do they know what i look like?" THANKS

Arkadaşların benimle konuştuğunu biliyor mu ?

Arkadaşların nasıl göründüğümü biliyor mu ?

Hello I want to translate this message. It´s my first attempt. can anyone help me to tell me if this is correct? 

Denizli gençleri tiki kız gibi dikkat çekmek için her boku yapıyor ;kendi bağırıyor,kıyafeti bağırıyor bu da yetmiyor arabayı bağırttırıyor.

Denizli girls as young tigers are doing all that shit to take care of its own, yelling, yelling outfit and cars that´s not enough.

I translated it in your other post.

Dear friends please help me translate this : hamdım , yandım , yandım...

This statement has a spiritual concept.

The spiritual meanings of those words:

ham olmak = being immature spiritually

yanmak = being  burnt with the fire of love

I  was immature and then I was burnt [with the fire of love for the God, since the immature souls are unaware of true knowledge and divineness of God, so “being burnt with a yearning of love” ]

As Mawlana, says , “It is not possible to reach Divine love and affection without burning the body”[spiritual burning] 

thank you so much

Hello. Unfortunatly while trying to translate a text I encountered another problem concerning a turkish phrase this is "piizlenesim gelmiş ya ben de ne eksik diyordum". 

I have translated it like this : I have come incomplete. Is it correct? 

Thank you 

Hello i am a Turkish native speaker who is 18 years old. And i think i can help you with the translation of that phrase. "Piizlenmek" means : Booze . But this verb usually states the person having booze is at a comfortable place. And is really enjoying it  

And for the full sentence translation it means : "I was wondering what was missing and i realized i need to have some booze"

I have to be honest though i believe many young turkish native speakers haven´t heard of that phrase too

thank you very much

Sorry but can anyone help me translating this: 

Haziranda yağmur; yanından hiç ayrılmamak için direnen sevgili gibi

I´ve tried to do it but im not sure it is correct

thank you for your help

My try-  Rain in June is like an insistent lover who doesn´t separate from your side

thank you

Merhaba!
Can someone please check this for me and correct if needed Lütfen <3
thanks a lot! <3

***

Surprise! Here I am, childish as always!

Sürpriz!Burada, her zaman olduğu gibi çocukça davranıyorum.

I keep wondering what do you really think about my childish behaviour. Does it make you smile?

 Oh, I know, I can be annoying at times, I´m often repeating myself but I do hope that, at least from time to time, you do smile when you read my silly messages.

Gerçekten çocukça davranışlarım hakkında ne düşünüyorsun merak ediyorum. Gülümseme yaptığınız?

Oh, biliyorum, ben zaman sinir bozucu olabilir. Ben genellikle kendimi tekrar ediyorum ama sen benim aptal mesajları okurken zaman en azından zaman, gülümse, umut yok.

You´re always in my mind. My heart beats only for you and there´s nothing you could say or do to change that. You´ve been the shining sun on my sky all along .

 

Seni her zaman aklımda. Kalbim senin için atıyor ve söyleyeceğin veya bunu değiştirebilecek bir şey. Mu gökyüzü her zaman parlayan güneş oldum. 

And, yes, I know, I have told you so many times that I love you, or I miss you. You probably  got bored reading that but it´s my way to remind you how special you are to me and how lucky I am to have met a man like you.

Ve, Evet, biliyorum, birçok kez seni seviyorum sana veya Özledim seni. Bu okuma sıkılıp muhtemelen ama benim için ne kadar özel olduğunu ve senin gibi bir adam tanıştığım için ne kadar şanslı olduğumu hatırlatmak için benim yoldur.

I wish I could hold in my arms, listen to your heartbeat and your lovely voice . Yes, sometimes I really wanna call you just to hear your voice and hang up right after.

Keşke ben seni kollarımda tutmak, kalbinizin atışı ve güzel sesini dinlemek. Evet, bazen gerçekten sadece sesini duymak ve hemen sonra telefonu aramak istiyorum.

Missing you sometimes drives me crazy but I´m so glad you exist.
Bazen eksik beni deli ediyor ama senin var sevindim.

I will always love you! ... no matter what!
Seni her zaman seveceğim! ... Ne olursa olsun!

Çok teşekkür ederim!

Merhaba! Can anyone please inbox me? I really need some help regarding translating from English to Turkish. I can´t post here this time.

I think this as a wonderful idea!!! Thank U!!!!

thank u