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Translated text and 4 word limit IM


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I'm in the process of keywording some images taken in Spain and am trying to find appropriate translations from English to Spanish. Sadly, I hardly know anything of the language, so am forced to use Google Translate.

 

A problem that I am encountering is that the translations are generally longer than the equivalent English text. So a meaningful three word English phrase becomes 5 words in Spanish and cannot be accommodated as a tag. What to do? 

 

Is it worthwhile entering the key Spanish words without the links, e.g drop the "de" etc? Or maybe split the phrase into two unrelated links?

 

Any ideas?

 

 

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Thanks Philippe, a difficult call as most Alamy customers are possibly English speaking and the caption is apparently important. However, where possible, a good solution.

 

(imbed or incorporate - Either will do, but I'm no expert in my mother tongue!)

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- and perhaps the obvious one: Make a list of the English phrases and the equivalent Google Translate Spanish phrases and ask a a person with a knowledge of Spanish what could be altered or left out. In this way, I guess, the job wouldn't take a lot of time for a person with a knowledge of Spanish, you may even ask a kind person you meet to have a look at some of them, or e-mail the list to a helpful person on the forum.

 

Edited: Have you tried to Google Translate the Spanish phrases back to English? This may also be helpful in your analysis.

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I think it's quite common for Spanish place names to drop the de on maps, signs and descriptions. For example Playa de las Americas (Tenerife) is often shown on signs and maps as Playa las Americas. So I would suggest the abbreviated version as a tag and the long one in the caption if you have room.

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If they are essential, try to incorporate (or imbed? What is the correct word? :unsure:) them in the caption.

 

 

'Incorporate' is a more abstract word than 'embed'. So you would incorporate the phrase in the caption by embedding it in the text.

 

Alan

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Also I believe the search engine will not use search terms shorter than 3 characters. True of most search.

 

Indeed - I also use this way to avoid too long tags very often - especially leaving out prepositions, articles,etc..

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Also I believe the search engine will not use search terms shorter than 3 characters. True of most search.

I don't believe it's the case.

 

Bird Branch = 111,194

Bird on branch = 61,644

Bird on a branch = 33,860

 

Gen

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Also I believe the search engine will not use search terms shorter than 3 characters. True of most search.

 

Indeed - I also use this way to avoid too long tags very often - especially leaving out prepositions, articles,etc..

 

 

No, two-letter words work just fine.

 

But to get back to the original question: I'm curious as to why you need to use so much Spanish in your tagging, Bryan? I just include proper nouns, usually the names of places, and they're easy to find. If you have a complex, long phrase include it in the caption: captions are supposed to be more important now. 

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Also I believe the search engine will not use search terms shorter than 3 characters. True of most search.

I don't believe it's the case.

 

Bird Branch = 111,194

Bird on branch = 61,644

Bird on a branch = 33,860

 

Gen

 

 

 

 

 

Also I believe the search engine will not use search terms shorter than 3 characters. True of most search.

 

Indeed - I also use this way to avoid too long tags very often - especially leaving out prepositions, articles,etc..

 

 

No, two-letter words work just fine.

 

But to get back to the original question: I'm curious as to why you need to use so much Spanish in your tagging, Bryan? I just include proper nouns, usually the names of places, and they're easy to find. If you have a complex, long phrase include it in the caption: captions are supposed to be more important now. 

 

 

Thanks. It seems I will have to add some prepositions to some of my images  :)

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Prepositions, Niels? Hmm. I don't know about that.  :unsure:

 

I was thinking of:

 

USA  6,268,235

US  1,715,367

la paz  29,607

paz  36,904

al sugo  50

sugo  432

 

The important point to remember is that American English, like it or not, is the language of the stock business. 

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Prepositions, Niels? Hmm. I don't know about that.  :unsure:

 

I was thinking of:

 

USA  6,268,235

US  1,715,367

la paz  29,607

paz  36,904

al sugo  50

sugo  432

 

The important point to remember is that American English, like it or not, is the language of the stock business. 

 

Under Spanish influence it seems. EU may be the most important two letter word here. :)   My US images were before I reinvested in photographic adequate digital equipment, unfortunately.

 

Hmm. British English is my first - but we have to spell in both ways and sometimes use different words.

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La Paz is a city in Bolivia, so Spanish, yes, but al sugo is Italian, and sugo means sauce and usually refers to a simple tomato sauce.  I do include "tomato sauce."  ;)

 

New Yorkers are multi-languaged  ;)

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La Paz is a city in Bolivia, so Spanish, yes, but al sugo is Italian, and sugo means sauce and usually refers to a simple tomato sauce.  I do include "tomato sauce."  ;)

 

New Yorkers are multi-languaged  ;)

 

 

 

Even multilingual. ;)

 

Allan

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La Paz is a city in Bolivia, so Spanish, yes, but al sugo is Italian, and sugo means sauce and usually refers to a simple tomato sauce.  I do include "tomato sauce."  ;)

 

New Yorkers are multi-languaged  ;)

 

 

 

Even multilingual. ;)

 

Allan

 

 

Wheras us 'ere is multibilingual  :D

 

Phil

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And, of course, there is the old joke.... "What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who can only speak one language? American."..  Ah yes. Too often true.

 

Paulette

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And, of course, there is the old joke.... "What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who can only speak one language? American."..  Ah yes. Too often true.

 

Paulette

 

 

I think the English are worse, or we used to be. We are so lazy, when it comes to learning different languages, we expect all nations to be able to speak English.

 

Allan

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Of course, when i am traveling to countries where I haven't a clue about the language (India coming up) it is such a relief to see all the signs in the airport in English. Bless the people who make those signs.

 

Paulette

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"Is it worthwhile entering the key Spanish words without the links, e.g drop the "de" etc?"

 

I somehow manage to make myself misunderstood in three languages, English, French, and Spanish, and that's what I do -- i.e. drop the "de" etc. and just add some key Spanish or French words when it seems a good idea to do so.

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And, of course, there is the old joke.... "What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who can only speak one language? American."..  Ah yes. Too often true.

 

Paulette

 

 

I think the English are worse, or we used to be. We are so lazy, when it comes to learning different languages, we expect all nations to be able to speak English.

 

Allan

 

 

Yes, I'm absolutely hopeless with foreign languages, despite making genuine efforts to learn, in particular, French. After studying the subject for 5 years at school and  then writing a computer program to fire French words and phrases at me when I had to respond with the correct translation, I still can't hack it.

 

Fortunately my wife is a bit of a linguist so I let her do the talking when we are abroad. Of our two sons one has the language gene, and did a degree in French, and the other not, weird. I don't know if it is to do with your ear, as I find spoken French almost impenetrable, while, I can, with extreme difficulty, make some sense of the written word.

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