cahn: (Default)
[personal profile] cahn
...we're still going, now with added German reading group :P :D

German reading group

Date: 2020-09-07 10:18 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Hmm. Wilhelmine's paragraphs are pretty long, so it would either be completely useless to you interleaved (as I discovered Horowksi was), or I would have to manually insert arbitrary paragraph breaks and then run it through Google Translate, because I am *not* going to do paragraph alignment again. :P Also, the English copy I have of her memoirs is a terrible quality scan, which OCR would really struggle with.

I vote for you holding off on her memoirs until we do French, when you can deal with separate files. You have Voigt to practice your German on now, and you can read Wives and Lehndorff with me in English (and maybe some Lehndorff in German), and if I can talk you into it, Oster's Wilhelmine bio in English. Come oooonnnn, she's your fave, it's fic research, we'll talk about her together, it'll be great! ;)

Besides, we'll go slowly while we practice our German on texts we don't need to talk so much about.

Anyway, I'm 4-5 pages from the end of AW, so I've put the interleaved Wives text into the the library. I'll be reading Wives at the same time as Sons, and if I finish Sons first, then either Heimwärts or the Wilhelmine memoirs.

When we finish Wives, then we can discuss whether we want to do Lehndorff next, or whether I should do Oster and Krackow.
Edited Date: 2020-09-07 10:18 pm (UTC)

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-07 11:03 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
I would NOT expect paragraph alignment

Okay, but when the paragraphs are misaligned, text and translation get increasingly out of sync, until by the end of the book, you might get 20 consecutive German paragraphs that aren't interleaved at all, but just clumped together, because the total number of paragraphs is different.

So the "translation" of a paragraph later on in the book ends up completely unrelated to the text it's supposedly translating, and you have to hunt for the actual translation. This would ruin the point of an interleaved translation for me, but yes, I suppose that may not be a dealbreaker for you. For me, scanning three pages ahead or behind to try to find the translation would defeat the purpose; I'd rather just have separate files at that point.

Even when the paragraphs were in sync, Horowski's 2-3 page paragraphs had me flipping several phone/Kindle pages forward to find the translation, then back again to find the original text, then forward again, and I just could not deal.
Edited Date: 2020-09-07 11:03 pm (UTC)

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-08 12:42 am (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
the Google translate interleaved (which I assume interleaves automatically) that my French is good enough

Oh, yes, I see what you mean. Yes, *Google* translate gets interleaved automatically, and the paragraphs would be aligned. When you said you didn't expect paragraph alignment, I thought you meant you didn't mind misaligned paragraphs. Never mind!

ETA: Though be aware that this will either mean using more of our Google Translate free trial on Wilhelmine, or paying for the translation (if we've already exhausted our free trial by that time). Although it just occurred to me the French memoirs are on Gutenberg, which means no OCR issues at least. Small victories!

Um, do you perchance use a Mac?
Edited Date: 2020-09-08 12:48 am (UTC)

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-08 09:05 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
They're Unix-specific, and I figure you don't use Linux, or that would have come up by now. But maybe I'm wrong!

Anyway, I was just thinking that if the interleaved Google translates end up being mostly for you at some point, I could hand over my scripts and teach you to run them, and you could get a free trial of your own, but...I don't support Windows. ;)

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-12 12:33 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
I suspect paths and file extensions may be a problem and require some conversion, but that's promising. If you like, at some point I can work with you to set it up on your computer so you can get a free trial. If not, then we can just start paying for translations. I'm hoping not to need German translations someday.

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-13 09:31 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Bash, but I could convert to Python3 if that's easier for you. I'm supposed to learn it for work anyway, so every so often I try to do something small in Python. Be aware that converting will take a certain amount of time, though.

I think only the first line, the #!/bin/bash, is absolute; all other paths should be relative, so as long as they exist, it should be okay.

Good luck!

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-08 01:53 am (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Though I have to say, 2-3 page paragraphs, even when aligned, still defeat the purpose of an interleaved translation for me. It's fewer clicks to have two tabs open and click on one to see the translation, and on the other to see the original, than to page forward six times to find the translation (because one text page = multiple pages on a smaller screen), and six times back to find the original, and back and forth every time you need to look something up. I don't know how you would put up with that!

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-08 09:08 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
When it comes to interleaving long paragraphs, it's not even about skill for me. Even if I were trying to cross-reference two things in English, I still wouldn't want to page back and forth, if I just could have two files side by side and just click on one and the other.

Like when I read Lavisse's Youth of Fritz, he has all his notes at the end. I don't page forward when I'm reading the text to read the end note, then page back to where I was. I'll open the file twice and keep them open side by side, one open to the text and one open to the notes, so I can keep my place in both. But if you don't mind endless paging back and forth, you have more patience than I do!

Re: German reading group

Date: 2020-09-12 12:35 pm (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
From: [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
That makes more sense--I'm reading on my phone or tablet, since I don't have a dedicated e-reader.

Profile

cahn: (Default)
cahn

June 2025

S M T W T F S
12345 67
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 13th, 2025 10:19 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios