Hi thanks for looking at my query. I recently as a joke changed some writing on the board of a friends EAL (English as an Additional Language) classroom from English to German. She liked the idea, but using Google Translate resulted in an overly formal phrasing that made it seem more a demand than a suggestion or polite request.
So my ask, if you speak (or I guess write) another language I would love to request you take a moment to translate “Please stack chairs at the end of the day” into whichever language you can help me with, it should be a polite request though.
I’m really not sure what the composition of her class is but she is a fan of languages as a whole so even if it’s not a language that is represented in her class I am sure it will be a bit of fun and a talking point to figure it out.
If you have the time and the skills to help I really appreciate it, otherwise I appreciate you taking the time to read this post. Have a fantastic day.
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Finnish:
Pinoathan tuolit päivän päätteeksi, kiitos.
We don’t have a word for please, so we usually add thank you for politeness.
Kiitos
The lack of “Please” took me a moment to process, but I guess it’s just a linguistic niche that the language didn’t need to fill, and the use of “Thank You” made it redundant. Cool, thank you!
“Пожалуйста, составьте стулья в стопку в конце дня” – Russian;
You can do either “Молим вас, сложите столице на краjу дана” or “Molim vas, složite stolice na kraju dana” for Serbian
Спасибо Or хвала ти
Is Cyrillic or Latin more used in Serbia? I like the novelty of trying to write Cyrillic clearly enough to be read but want to make sure I am using the more common form.
Portuguese: “Por favor empilhar as cadeiras ao final do dia”
Obrigado.
I’ve always wondered, if you know, how difficult is it to be clearly understood between Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese?
I have family who speak with a strong enough Scottish accent that understanding is very difficult for some people, but also there are words they use that are just different than what people in other English speaking parts of the world use. Is it like that, or less, or more?
I would say it is very similar to what you said. Different accent and some different meanings of more colloquial words. There are some common European Portuguese slangs that have sexual meaning in Brazilian Portuguese, so some Portuguese ads have gone viral in Brazil.
Cool, thank you!
🇰🇷 Korean: 일과를 마친 후 의자를 쌓아 주세요.
감사합니다
I am shamed to admit that after 5 years of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido as a kid, all I remember is hana, dul, ses and dollida.
Greek:
Παρακαλώ στοιβάχτε τις καρέκλες στο τέλος της ημέρας.
Σας ευχαριστώ
Hope I can write that nice an clearly.
100% correct on the greek part!
ωραίος φίλε.
Italian: “Per favore, aiutateci ad impilare le sedie alla fine della giornata”
Direct translation aside from “aiutateci” which means “help us” to make it more of a friendly request than a command - the verb goes into the indefinite form so it’s not “aimed” at anyone. I think “lezione” (lesson) would work more naturally than “giornata” (day) as that usually means either sunset or when you go to bed
Grazie mille.
Thanks for the interpretation as well, makes perfect sense. I will certainly use this soon.
🇹🇷 Turkish: Lütfen gün sonunda sandalyeleri üst üste koyunuz.
Çok teşekkür ederim
Turkish sounds like an interesting language, if I understand correctly it transitioned from being written in Ottoman Turkish script to Latin script under reforms put in place by Atatürk.
I would imagine this would be like a super charged version of when countries moved from Imperial weights and measures to metric.
I realise that was only part of the changes that the country experienced at that time, but it’s a strange idea that whole generations would have to adjust to a new way of reading and writing.
Rica ederim, her zaman!
The Ottoman and post-Islam Turkic scripts uses Arabic alphabet, and it is rather incompatible with Turkish than Latin alphabet—different grammar and pronunciation rules.
The literacy rate in pre-reform Anatolia was around 9%, so the switch wasn’t that hard unlike reactionaries—the Ottoman fetishizers and Islamic cultists—claim. The switch was necessary for educating the masses and “catching up with the West”, as Atatürk said.
I hope one day to visit your country.
My wife has been a fan of Refika Birgül for several years and we have more than one of her recipes we prepare regularly.
I have also got friends and family who have served with the Australian Defense Force who have visited as part of world war rememberance ceremonies and been really impressed by the country.
I’d be glad to accommodate your visit.
Thank you I appreciate the offer, I fear that even if the world wasn’t in the state it is I would not have the financial means to take a trip like that right now. I think this will be on my list for once the kids have left home, and hopefully the world has achieved some level of equilibrium by then.
When that day comes, I hope Türkiye gets rid of the Erdoğan dynasty and the other reactionaries.
The sort of change that’s needed across many parts of the world these days my friend. But until that day, stay safe and don’t get into any trouble you can’t handle.
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Hungarian: Kérlek szépen, pakoljátok egymásra a székeket a nap végén!
Note that the accents should be written perfectly vertically, not slanted
Köszönöm
If I am reading this correctly you have provided a more direct translation than Algernon did in another comment, is that like in English where the sentence structure is flexible enough for either version to read naturally, or in Hungarian is there a better way of expressing the sentiment?
Bojlereladó!! Sounds interesting? Could you explain it to a poor ignorant angol anyanyelvű?
like in English where the sentence structure is flexible enough
it’s more flexible actually
In mine ai say that the global theme is “stacking the chairs”, meanwhile they say that the topic is “at the end of the day”
Both are perfectly correct it just depends on what you want to emphasise
Cool, thank you for the clarification.
走之前唔該疊翻好啲櫈
^Cantonese version. It means “Before you leave, please stack the chairs”
多謝你
I was hoping for Cantonese, I’m almost certain there will be students in the class who will be able to read it, thank you for the translation and the interpretation.
Hell yeah
Spanish: “Por favor, apila las sillas al final del día.” It can be more polite if you add a “Gracias” at the end to give thanks before hand: “Por favor, apila las sillas al final del día. Gracias.”
Edit: you can change “apila” for “apile” to be even more polite. “Por favor, apile las sillas al final del día. Gracias.”
Gracias.
Do you mind if I ask, what makes “apile” more polite than “apila”?
Native here.
“Apila” is refering to the listener as “tú” (a.k.a. “you”).
“Apile” is refering to the listener as “usted” (basically a more formal version of “you”).
In Spanish, despite both “tú” and “usted” refering to the 2nd person singular, different conjugations are used in each of them. “Tú” uses the standard 2nd person conjugation, while “Usted” picks the 3rd person’s one instead for whatever reason.
Ok, sorry to come across as ignorant, but to pick a random example would this be the difference between “Excuse me” and Excuse me sir/ma’am?" The content remains the same but it’s usage would fall more into a formal way of speaking?
If you as an adult were addressing a class of teenagers but were only making a request, not a demand would either be more appropriate?
Thanks for the insight I really appreciate it.
Italian has a similar thing, where it uses the “her” (“Lei”, often implied and capitalised when explicit) pronoun conjugation as a formal structure, regardless of the person’s gender. From what the other Spanish commenters have said I would say it differs from it in that it conveys respect more than kindness, so it would sound weird in your context - but it might also be because I would translate the “command” version in the 2nd person plural and this only applies to the singular.
It used to be used with your parents not that long ago, that is almost completely gone now but it is still very common when talking to your teachers, businesses, officers, old people, in letters, etc. It is also the default between strangers, but that has been slowly changing since the 2000s. It’s called “dare del lei” (lit. “To give the her”), and “possiamo darci del tu?” is a common question to “handshake” use of the regular 2nd person.
I’m super grateful for the explanation, does it make sense that I lack an adequate frame of reference for this? I did Latin many years ago, poorly. Since then it’s been primarily English with a touch of guidebook Japanese phrases. I just don’t have the mental agility to make the connections. But I am curious and when I am no longer working shift work I might delve into some language learning to improve the neural elasticity.
It does, it’s a very weird thing if you’re not used to it, you’re not dumb or anything. I recognize it’s a completely alien concept, there is no analogue in English, and it stacks on top of the singular and plural "you"s being different and having gendered words making it extra difficult to fully conjugate a sentence for speakers of languages that lack those features. But 90% of the time the meaning gets across anyway and we don’t care :) (unless you’re French /j)
Not the person you asked, but a native Spanish speaker myself. The formal way to say “excuse me” (for example to a teacher or boss, or to a stranger on the street if you wish to be polite) would be “disculpe señor/a”, or “discúlpeme señor/a”. You can also remove señor/a and simply say “disculpe” or “discúlpeme” to anyone and it will still carry the same meaning, since the verb in both cases already implies it’s about yourself.
The informal way would be “disculpame” or “discúlpame”, although in this case adding señor/a sounds way off. You can definitely add a name though, ie, “discúlpame Shads” and that would be okay.
Edit: as for your specific request of an adult teacher asking something to the students, that would depend a lot on the relationship they have, some teachers are distant while others get more familiar with time. I’ve seen both. By all means the formal one would always be correct. I’ve seen teachers with a usually more relaxed or casual approach revert to the formal when they are getting serious or upset.
You know the more I reflect on this the more sure I am that I am falling into a trap that I am sure a lot of English speakers fall into. I am trying to apply English rules to Spanish as there is a shared language root and a bunch of shared words and at some level syntax. I need to acknowledge that Spanish is a distinct mature language and trying to treat it as a different dialect of English is a wall I need to stop butting my head off.
Really appreciate you stepping in to clarify for someone with my calcified language abilities, the lack of comprehension is entirely my own.
I think I will go with “Por favor, apila las sillas al final del día. Gracias.” and save deeper understanding until I can devote more time and mental energy to understanding Spanish as Spanish.
You rock!
Fair conclusion, but don’t be so hard on yourself. Honestly as a native speaker these things don’t come across as “rules” for me even though of course they have rules. It’s just the natural and obvious way of using the language. And that’s something very hard to get right if you weren’t raised with that language. In other words, I’ve heard a gazillion people say so many examples of phrases in Spanish since before I have memory, that hearing or seeing something outside of the expected pattern stands out immediately, but I can’t always explain why.
It’s unreasonable to expect ever having the same level of fluency with a language you weren’t raised with. I’ve been speaking English half my life and I still screw up sometimes.
Thank you, I should disclose that I am a Gen X Australian, we do self deprecation at a super advanced level. I absolutely get that language becomes so engrained that things just don’t sound/read as correct for reasons you would understand if you took the time to think about them, but you don’t really have to expend any effort to know it.
I promise I’m not being too hard on myself just accepting there’s things I don’t know and haven’t earnt a shortcut to bypass learning to understand.
In spanish there are two ways to refer to people, one is formal and another one is informal. When you want to talk to someone in a formal way you must use verbs in a special form with a special personal pronoun called “usted”.
Formal way: “Usted es muy guapo” (You are so handsome).
Informal way: “Eres muy guapo” (You are so handsome).Look how in the first sentence we used “usted” and then we used the verb “ser” in third person and in present tense. In the second example we use directly the verb “ser” in imperfect tense. I could wrote “Por favor, usted apile las sillas al final del día. Gracias”, but that’s too much formal, to the point that can be felt like passive-agressive to some people, since people doesn’t use “usted” too often before the verb. Even you can say “Es muy guapo” too keep the formal but more in a casual way.
I’m a native speaker, not a teacher or something, so, please, refer to this site to get more information. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usted
Non-native Spanish speaker, but I believe it’s in the directness of the command. Apila is telling someone to do it, whereas apile is just saying it needs to be done.
Sorry, but is not like that. I’ve responded already to its question.
Wouldn’t the tu version be apilas? I’m not super familiar with that particular verb.
Yeah, but that would be in active tense. “Apilas las sillas” would be “You stack the chairs”.
Not exactly. Saying it needs to be done would look more like “Las sillas deben ser / deberán ser apiladas […]”
Yeah, something like “las sillas deben apilarse” is not a direct translation but the idea is there.
To everyone except me in this comment thread, I respect your superior knowledge, ability to translate between different languages and thank you for your time.
I would love to devote the time to learning Spanish, but I am afraid that’s not practical for me right now.
That being said I obviously need to learn a little more about how this works so I will do some further reading about “usted”.
You all rock! Thanks again!
Ah, cool. If I understand, what I would achieve with extra verbosity in English is achieved by conjugation in this example. Or I am speaking out of my posterior. Either way thanks for the clarification.
In Japanese I would say:
一日終わったら、椅子を重ねてください。
ありがとう
You answered 5 minutes before my sister in law. I am reasonably certain my friend has at least one Japanese student so I know this is one the class will be able to read.
I believe in esperanto it should be
bonvolu stakigi la seĝojn ĉe la fino de la tago
Literally translates to something like
“Please make stacked the chairs at the end of the day”
Dankon
Esperanto seems like an interesting language to study, do you find my opportunities to use it?
Basically none. A couple friends have learned a little bit with me, and I’ve sought out a couple Esperanto books, podcasts, etc.
But otherwise I can’t say that I’ve ever randomly run into another esperantist I could talk to, and I’m not the type of person who seeks out clubs and conventions or making friends with strangers online.
But it’s an easy language to learn, and I feel like it’s taught me how to learn a language, and I think that I’ll be better prepared if I ever decide to try picking up another language somewhere down the line.
And while I’m not holding my breath, I like the idea of an international auxiliary language, and while there’s some valid criticism of Esperanto for that purpose (like that it’s too eurocentric) it’s probably about the best option that we have right now since it already exists, there’s people who actually speak it and it doesn’t have all of the weird grammar rules and such that natural languages all tend to have.
Yes, Esperanto has many advantages of a manufactured language, but I think there are only something like 2 million speakers worldwide. If someone wanted to dip their toes into it, Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series has Esperanto sprinkled throughout it, and has been translated into Esperanto. He was a fan. You certainly won’t learn it reading his (English) books, but the structure is very recognizable.
Probably the coolest thing since I started learning it is some of the weird places it turns up
If you read the comic series Saga, the “blue” language is Esperanto
It shows up in the background of some movies and such as a generic “foreign” language
The watch brand Movado is an Esperanto word (movement)
I first heard of it thanks to Red Dwarf if that counts for anything.
Awesome, you actually answered all the questions I had bubbling away in my head but didn’t want to be too presumptive in asking. More decades ago than I care admit, I did a 25 hour Latin course. Very little of it stuck with me but it seems like Esperanto could fill a similar niche to the one I was trying to fill by learning latin, as a bridging language to be more capable in the Romance languages. I’m sure there are studies out there on language as sociology, as the largest con-lan I am aware of I wonder how deep that research runs? Another thing for me to read up on I guess.
Thanks again!
I’ve never dived too deep into in, but I know there has been some research into native Esperanto speakers (denaskuloj) because that’s a thing that exists
And isn’t that amazing, a conciously constructed language having native speakers is just kind of amazing. So much of English is legacy cruft that has accumulated organically since it seperated from Old English, and so much of Old English was likewise accumulated from its antecedents. A language, any language with a clear dilineation has an opportunity to start with a clean slate that is informed but not slaved to the past. Things like vowel orders can be made as rules without having more exceptions than complying words. Brilliant.
Polish: Po zajęciach proszę złożyć razem krzesła.
Literał: after lectures please stack chairs together.
I could translate it more literal to original but no one speaks like this so any close translation from English would sound weird for my taste.
Dziękuję
(I hope that’s correct)
That’s a perfect interpretation of my intent, if she has any Polish students (or people familiar with Polish) I hope that will bring a smile.
I’m sure some other Pole will come here and make even better version of this tho. We have this saying “where’s two Poles there’s three opinions” and while helping with UI translations I noticed this is not just a saying, it’s a fact. Especially when it comes to our language. :)
I love that! I mentioned elsewhere, but this is a frivolous kind of request, I am so grateful for people willing to indulge it. But I didn’t realise the cultural context would be so enjoyable. Thanks again!
If Cyrillic is fine you can say in Ukrainian “Будь ласка складіть стільці наприкінці дня”. I’ll transliterate with polish spelling as it’s closest sounding language I know, not perfect but best I can do: “bud laska skladit stilci naprykici dnia”
дякую
I have been hoping for a few different alphabets, so Cyrillic is perfect, just means I will have to work hard to copy it correctly.
May I ask is that a direct translation?
Yes, literally says
please (будь ласка) stack (складіть) chairs (стільці) at the end (наприкінці) of the day (дня)
Ukrainian, like many slavic languages, has no articles and uses grammatical cases
Cool, I am finding this so fascinating. Thanks for helping and giving me a little window into a language I haven’t ever had a chance to examine.
Side note: Forget Google Translate. Better try deepl.com instead.
I’ll keep that in mind, but to be honest, this has been so much fun. I love that there is a community of people willing to devote even a tiny fraction of their brain power to such a frivolous request. Plus I am getting all sorts of little fun side details. I would never ask anyone to give me more than a few seconds of their time, but this whole thing has already put a smile on my face.
In future I’ll check out DeepL though. Have a great day.
