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Hey there,
I’m not sure if I’m right here in this forum, but I really need help for a translation, ’cause irish friends doesn’t speaking here (in germany) good gaelic. I need the translation of a short phrase for a tattoo and I don’t want a mistake in the context and grammatic.
The phrase is “The lights tell about life”
The plural of the light is correct, it means the seven colours of the spectrum (rainbow) which is a symbol for the different facettes in life. And of course means “life” in the phrase not the life-span, but rather the biographie of me.
Maybe it is possible to use more “poem”-words not a allday-slang, but of course it isn’t so important ’cause in germany the most people doens’t speak gaelic.
It would be great if you can help me 🙂
Thanks and greetings from Germany
HelmutTá na soilse ag labhairt faoin saor
would be my guess. But I’m not sure about the implications of the meanings of the lights that you said.
saor = saol
This one is going to be very problematic, since even the English version is so esoteric that it really doesn’t make a lot of sense as it is. Translating it into Irish is going to only make it more obscure, even if you get it grammatically correct. “Insíonn na soilse faoin saol” is probably how I’d translate it literally, if you had to do so. There are undoubtedly more poetic and/or appropriate ways of saying this though. I particularly don’t like translating directly the verb “tell”, because this isn’t really how you’d say it in Irish, I think. “Nochtann na soilse an saol” (the lights reveal life) might be closer to the real meaning implied. I’d wait for more masterful speakers though.
This has no meaning in English. Perhaps you should put what you want to communicate in your mother language. There are polyglots on this form who can help you. I believe there may be German speakers on the Irish Learners Forum. Ádh mór ort!
Seasann na soilse don tsaoghal.
Léirightear an saoghal sna soilse.
Chítear an saoghal sna soilse.
???
Féabar makes a good point. I actually speak German, so if you want to put it in German, I might be able to come up with something that is more meaningful for you in Irish.
Léirightear an saoghal sna soilse
Chítear an saoghal sna soilseThese are good suggestions.
thanks for all the answers…
and I see it is mor difficult as I thought, but the translations are not far from my meaning/interpretation
in german the phrase is only “Die Lichter erzählen vom Leben” – “The lights tell about life”
i’m thinking you know now the lights are a symbol of the seven colours of the rainbow which are the different feelings/moods/phases/steps in life… with “erzählen” or “tell” i will say that the lights are revealing (offenbaren) and reflecting (widerspiegeln) the life… similar like a special font or languages…it is okay if there some room for interpretation… so people have to think about this phrase 😉
Since it’s so vague (in all languages, apparently) you could say this a hundred different ways. “Is iad na soilse léiriú/samhail an tsaoil” (the lights are a representation/image of life), “Léiriú/samhail an tsaoil atá sna soilse” (same thing, different word order emphasis).
i know that is really vague but it’s okay… maybe so i have the choice which phrase looks more beautiful…
what is with this translations? a friend tried:
1. Na soilse a insint na beatha (Die Lichter des Lebens zu erzählen)
2. Is é mo bheatha á insint ó na soilse.. (Mein Leben wird von den Lichtern erzählt.)
3. Insint na dathanna solas na beatha (Die Farben des Lichts erzählen vom Leben)
is it the same or similar meaning? i like the second and third one, but are they correct?
1. grammatically incorrect, as far as I can tell. This isn’t really a construction you would use, as far as I know.
2. “ag na soilse” would make it grammatically correct, but the sentiment is somewhat clunky – something like “it’s my life that is told by the lights” (Es ist mein Leben dass von den Lichter erzaehlt wird).
3. This one doesn’t mean what you have it translated as. You’d have to change it to “insíonn” to even make it grammatically correct, and at that point it means “the colors tell the lights of life” (Die Farben erzaehlen das Licht des Lebens).I personally wouldn’t use any of those.
oh lord, difficult 😀
so what are the offers for a ggod phrase with similar meanings? maybe so it will be easier to find a good one… 🙂
Regarding “soilse”, in this case, the original quote is so vague that I don’t see a real objection to having the translation being equivalently vague. I don’t see a point in making the translation more specific than the original piece.
I somewhat agree, in retrospect, about “saol” though.
There is nothing in the actual text requested for translation that says anything about rainbows. To put the word for “rainbow” into the translation would be the mark of a poor translator, in this instance. And why don’t you let me be the judge of what I’ve tried and not tried to understand, since you clearly haven’t a f~cking idea.
Language is inherently vague. This is one of the many things you clearly don’t understand at all. God forbid anyone actually asked you to translate a complete book – it would end up being the length of 20 books, because you felt the need to qualify every single thing so that there was no ambiguity in any single nook of the text. I suppose you think that would count as success as a translator – completely removing all possibility of re-interpretation that was present in the original text.
Your grumpy and condescending attitude is what is unnecessary. I don’t know why you even come here at all. You clearly don’t enjoy communicating with other humans.
And for the record, you’ve used profanity here in the past, so that’s laughably hypocritical of you to call me out on that. You yourself (ironically) referred to me as a shit-stirrer on one occasion. Or is your memory that poor?
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