how you can ask in yahoo answers how to say something in a language and you get so many different answers?

Answer 1

There are many ways to say the same thing in any language.

Answer 2

Because language is a discipline totally different from something like math, where 1 is 1 and 2 is 2. Granted, there are some clear cut answers in a language but most of the time that's not the case. So, one question can be answered in several ways. Besides there are people too lazy to learn the language and opt for on-line translators and come up with you-know-what. Need I say more?

Answer 3

Ahahahah!!!

Because:
(1) often some, if not most, of the answers are wrong, especially because people use automatic translators;
(2) there is nearly always more than one way of saying the same thing ... no?

But you didn't get so many different answers to this question ... and that's because we're right.

PS Edit ...

And Hawaii's point below is extremely well illustrated by one of the answers you got to your recent question ... I'm talking about the user who provided a good translation from her own point of view as a young single person, but who forgot to consider whether the majority of your intended audience fell into the same category ... English does not make such distinctions at the grammatical level, but most European languages do. So right away, cultural considerations impose 3 or 4 possible alternatives for exactly the same English sentence, even before factors like word order and synonyms come into play.

Another factor is "pragmatics" ... what sounds right in English may very well come across quite differently in another language when translated literally. English is a plain language, which works its core vocabulary very hard. As a result, a single phrase may have several different shades of meaning, depending on the context and the tone of voice . For example, the simple question, "Where are you going?", ranges from a helpful enquiry to an indignant demand. The translator has to consider the speaker's underlying intentions and ensure that those intentions are accurately communicated. This may mean that it is appropriate to rewrite the original sentence in the target language - "What is your destination?", which, while perfectly understandable, does not sound quite natural in English, but it does in Italian - in that context. While Italian has less words than English, it uses many more of them in everyday discourse. Paralinguistic features like tone of voice and gesture are used to complement the message in Italian, whereas in English, tone is more often a semantic component of the message.

Apologies for the long answer. It is a most interesting question, and it is the one which is most central to the translator's art. And it is an art, not a science. As other people have said, there is often no single right answer ... but there are good answers, there are also good efforts which for contextual reasons aren't fit for purpose, and then there are the plain bad answers (and these are nearly always more than than half the total). There is only one thing you can be absolutely sure of ... automatic translators always produce nonsense (if anyone needs convincing, just try feeding their output back in and see what you get!).

You were actually lucky, because the "thumbs" turned out to be a reliable signpost to the good answers, and most often this is not the case ... firstly because of assorted trolls and babelfish users who resent people who actually know how to translate, and often, I am sorry to say, to rivalry between users who should know better and, as translators, should always put the needs of the questioner before their egotistical and unhelpful competitiveness.

The fact that you are able to read the profiles of your answerers is a useful tool to help you form a view of the reliability of their answers ... if you see that they regularly participate in both languages, that's a good sign.

Answer 4

Languages are not simply some kind of code that all have the same exact motivations and reasons behind the manipulation of voice. Language embodies culture. It is naive to assume that what is said in English can be instantly translated into any other language with the same force and understanding. Translation requires cultural understanding, nuance, and a lot of hard practice.

Answer 5

There are two reasons: 1. People use online translation tools, which are for the most part completely inaccurate and unreliable. People who have no knowledge of the language in question think they can provide an answer simply by feeding the original text into the online translator and copying the result in their answer. 99.9% of the time, the answer is wrong. 2. There are in fact many possible ways to translate the same thing, even simple phrases, from one language to another. And often the asker has not clearly stated the question to begin with.

Answer 6

In yahoo answers, how can you get so many different answers when you ask how to say something in a language?

Does that answer your question?

Answer 7

Unfortunately, not everyone is genuine. There was one questioner who ask an innocent straight forward question to be translated into German. One unscrupulous answerer translated "Your mother is a dog," into German. I felt obligated to answer in order to warn the questioner even though a number of other persons already answered the question correctly.
My advice: Take the answers and put them through the online translator. If anything disgusting comes up, don't use it.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Answer 8

Because a lot of people haven't got a clue and will use online translation tools - which usually are rubbish - just to answer the question and earn 2 points.

Answer 9

well this is UK site and we converse in English which is the norm for UK but if you want to converse in alien language go to site for chosen dialect sure you will find..but as all on yahoo used to answering and translating odd questions maybe we can help sure there's someone with enough talent to help ...site of Many talents

Answer 10

Because either you have the native speakers which will give you a reasonable transalation with a few variations depending on their place of origin, or you have the ones using a web translator, (which are many) and will give you the wrong answer. Every web translator gives a different answer.