Originally posted by Dandello:
So you could say: The dog bites the postman.
but also: The postman bites the dog
without actually changing the fact that it were the dog's teeth in the postman's leg.
I think that second sentence would come out 'The postman was bitten by the dog.' Even in German.
Yes, I remember taking German in high school. My Berliner teacher said I hailed from Bavaria. Since you did have German, you might remember that German nouns (determiners and adjectives, too) show their case (eg nominative, genitive, dative and accusative). Thus, the case-marking would make it very clear which one is the subject and which one the object of the biting. So, bakasi's translation of the German original is not quite accurate because it is missing the case-marking (which English doesn't really have):
Der Hund biss den Postboten.
The dog (nominative) bit the postman (accusative).
Den Postboten biss der Hund.
The postman (accusative) bit the dog (nominative).If the postman would be the one doing the biting, the second sentence would look like this in German:
Der Postbote biss den Hund.
The postman (nominative) bit the dog (accusative). See the slight difference? For a German, this is enough to know whose teeth ended up in whose leg.
So, back to Queenie's question: Foreign languages.
I think you should be aware of important cultural differences. Take New Krypton, for example. People there don't show their emotions, so it's quite likely they do not know more than one word for several different emotions. For example, they might have only one verb meaning "love", "respect", "like", "appreciate" and "value" (someone). On the other hand, they might have about a dozen different terms for duty.
Another difference you might want to play on would be their stiff formality.
About curses: Not that I think the people from NK would know many of them (maybe from some ancient writings?), I think one of the worst a creative Kryptonian could come up with is something like "This person has her emotions doing her thinking."
But, like Carol, I'd prefer the 'original speech' and only a hint at the real meaning. Let the reader figure things out for himself - he might like his interpretation better.
