Comic relief, by way of Teresa and both Annas

[ritaxis]

I found Omniglot a while back, but I didn't find the useful phrases part until tonight. By way of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=annafdd, and http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=aynathie. For some reason I can neither recall nor find the proper way to get a personhead, so those linky things will have to do. I know it's ugly, but if I can't find the instructions and I can't remember them, I'm left with kludgery as my only option.

Here are ones I chose especially for http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=diminishedsheep, and her friends, picked and arranged to tell a story they will all relate to:

German
Ich bin kein Mitglied dieser Konferenz, dennoch möchte ich einen Pinguin.
I am not a conference delegate, nevertheless I would like a penguin.


Wir wollen Ihre Kühe und Schafe sehen.
We want to see your cows and sheep.

Welsh
Mae'r defaid wedi bwyta fy mrechdanau!
A sheep has eaten my sandwiches!

Gaelic (but this is too obvious)
Cò an caora sin còmhla riut a chunnaic mi an-raoir?
Who was that sheep I saw you with last night?
Cha b'e sin caora, 'se sin mo chèile a bha innte!
That was no sheep, that was my spouse!

Cebuano
Gusto kung mosakay sa kabaw.
I want to ride on a water buffalo.

Esperanto
Mi volas brakumi tiun sciuron.
I want to hug that squirrel.

French
Il y a un singe qui vole dans l'arbre.
There's a flying monkey in the tree.

Tibetan
Nga saymong chig gö!
I need a squirrel!

Russian
V našem lesu mnogo medvedej
There are many bears in our forest.

Hindi
Āpke mez ke nīce billī hai.
There is a cat under your table.

Esperanto
Kiom kostas tiu hundeto en la fenestro?
How much is that doggie in the window?

Indonesian
Maaf, Nona. Ada bebek di atas kepala anda.
Excuse me miss, there's a duck on your head.

Breton
Sot oc'h gant ar binîoù?
Are you fond of bagpipes?

Swedish
Mitt huvud trillar av och det är fullt av godis.
My head falls off and it is full of candy.

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

The way you get those little personheads is <lj user="username">. I think it's in the faq somewhere, but I don't find the faq particularly easy to use, either.

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

Also, you might look into using a client -- Semagic is the one I use and it's pretty good, you find it here (http://sourceforge.net/projects/semagic/). Among other things, it has a menu with all the names from your friendslist and you can pick and insert from there.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

It's definitely in the FAQ somewhere but when I go to look for it I can only find it half the time, and the grammar of it is different from the grammar of other HTML things that I know (which aren't many). So is the grammar of the ugly things I used to kludge it, too.

I wonder if it would be received well if I offered to make a more useful guide to the little tricks and things. I'm not an HTML expert but I know how to write, and how to arrange material so that it can be learned.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

I don't see why not. Couldn't hurt to ask, at least.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd second that. If you do it as a polite offer of your time and expertise, I think they'd be stupid to turn you down, personally.

[carandol.livejournal.com]

I found a useful phrase when I was in Germany was "Mein Deutch ist schlimm." It never failed to get a laugh, because it doesn't actually mean what it sounds as though it means. It actually means "My German is tragic."

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I do love that.