Hi, I have asked this question of several Vietnamese TOEFL essay writers, but have not received any answers yet. Why do they so often use a comma instead of “and”? For example:
“There are many buses, cars on the highway.”
“My brother, sister went to the park.”
I searched for this on the internet and found this website about Vietnamese foreign investment laws: dpi.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/inv … /law2.html
with this note about punctuation: Punctuation: In the original Vietnamese text of this Law, the drafters often use commas and semicolons instead of writing clearly the words “or”, “and” or “and/or”. In Vietnamese, the comma and semicolon may be conjunctive or disjunctive. Therefore, the meaning of certain provisions in the original text of this document appears ambiguous. Throughout this translation, commas and semicolons are translated as “and”, “or” or “and/or” according to the context. Words added in place of commas and semicolons are placed in square brackets for easy identification.
So is this something inherent in the Vietnamese language that causes this error? You would think it would be something the English teachers in Vietnam would stress and try to correct.
I commonly find the same thing in Czech and German writing, and also in English written by Czechs and Germans, particularly when there are three or more items in a series. I think some languages just don’t require a conjunction to appear in a series if the writer doesn’t want to use one.
In German you wouldn’t leave out the ‘and’ (‘und’) just like the Vietnamese do so I don’t know why you have found this with Germans when they write in English, Jamie.[YSaerTTEW443543]
I don’t know why either, but all day I translate texts written by hundreds of German and Czech writers, and I run into it very often. So whether it’s considered wrong or not, they do it quite a lot.
Something Germans frequently do that I think is silly is to write pairs of words that mean exactly the same thing but are in two different languages. So they may write “…Zubehör und Accessories” or “…Unterstützung und Support” or “…Cleaning und Reinigung”. If the translator writes those as just “accessories” or “support” or “cleaning”, the German client is liable to come back and complain that he skipped some words.
Jamie, sometimes I really wonder how you come up with all that stuff about Germans and their “silly” behaviors. Germans don’t frequently combine two words of two different languages that have the same meaning and I don’t know where you find such texts. Also, what does that have to do with skipping conjunctions?
On the other hand, many native English-speakers leave out conjunctions to give a sentence more impact and drama. Especially journalists love doing that. Some novelists do it too, but some of them overdo it, and that’s when the writing becomes stilted. I will give you an example of one of my favorite writers, even though her writing is choppy because of the lack of conjunctions. Sharon K. Penman:
“Joanna said nothing, watched as he drew the blade against the underside of his forearm, stanched the bleeding with the sheets. She was very close at that moment to hating him; what was to him such a source of obvious amusement was to her an acute humiliation. How could he laugh at her like this, be so cruel?”
I also have never seen the combinations Jamie has posted. “Cleaning und Reininung” is specially funny. Have you made them up yourself Jamie, to entertain us ;-)?
Here is another created by me: Übersetzung und Translating[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hello. Yes, sometimes we don’t use “and” or “or” when we list things like your examples:
“There are many buses, cars on the highway.”
“My brother, sister went to the park.”
Because in Vietnamese, we often say “Có nhiều xe buýt, xe hơi trên đường cao tốc”, “Anh chị tôi đã đi ra công viên”. However, we still say “buses and cars”. But we rarely say “my brother and sister” (anh và chị tôi). Instead, we say “anh chị tôi”, it’s shorter and simpler.
Claudia and Torsten, I see that type of writing very often in German technical, business and advertising texts sent to me by translation agencies in Germany. They come from the agencies’ corporate clients. Both the deletion of conjunctions and the pairing of foreign and German synonyms are common enough that I see them a few times a week. Then you get these tautological compounds like “Service-Dienst”. “If you have questions, contact our service service.”
Really? Who in their right mind would every say ‘Service-Dienst’? Now, after I just typed that thought I googled the term and am shocked to see this: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-Dienste[YSaerTTEW443543]
Yes, there is such a thing as Service-Dienst. Service isn’t just English and has been around in German for a very long time. I imagine that “Service” is the verb while “Dienst” is the noun: A Dienst that provides Service. Like Reparatur- und Servicedienste. There is a slight difference between Service and Dienst: Service also includes personal attendance and consultation, while Dienst is manual . . . it is difficult to explain because Service and Dienst translate only into Service in English.
“Zubehör und Accessories” are not synonymous in German. Also, we pronounce Accessories differently from English. I never heard or came across “Cleaning und Reinigung”.
What I don’t like about business language in ANY country is the word “project”. Every little thing is a project. To them, having a baby is a project.
Thanks Todat, yes it helped, but I always like getting as many opinions as possible - plus, look at the interesting side conversation it engendered.
Maybe one other question - do they use the Roman alphabet in Vietnam like Nguyencal did above, or are there special Vietnamese characters like Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese? If you use the Roman alphabet, how do you type all the special squiggles and accents above the vowels? Are there keys for every combination, or do you say type the “a” key and at the same time the accent key to form the correct combination?
In the German texts I have to read every day, both projects and products are called “Lösungen” (solutions). To these writers, having a baby is a Lösung, and the baby itself would be a Lösung. Almost everything is a Lösung.
Another thing that drives me crazy in these texts is that they always write that some product “überzeugt” (convinces), but they never say who the product convinces of what. In English, you can’t use “convince” as an intransitive verb, so I often have to guess at the possible direct object they have in mind or use a different idea.
No, solution is American, spread by American firms such as Packard Bell, IBM and Microsoft.
You can let German drive you crazy, or you can accept the fact that we, too, have a variety of meanings for one and the same word, just like any other language.
American companies use “solution” for products and services that solve problems. But, as happens with many words, a lot of German companies and individuals took the word and went crazy with it. In German, they use it for all kinds of things that in English would never be called a solution, and for many things that don’t solve anything.
And, like any other language, you have buzzwords that are used as much as possible, regardless of whether they make any sense in the given context.
Then, of course, like other languages, you have words that more or less don’t mean anything. For example, German has “beziehungsweise”, which dictionaries claim means “respectively” in English but can almost never means “respectively”. Most often it means “or”. Sometimes it means “and”, sometimes it means “and/or”, and sometimes it’s apparently used where a writer doesn’t feel like deciding which conjunction to use. I heard that a few years ago a German court ruled that “beziehungsweise” is too vague to be used in legal contexts.
I also think “Chai Tea” is funny, but they do it because in English “chai” doesn’t mean tea, but tea mixed with milk, spices and sugar.
“Cheese quesadilla” is not repetitive, because it is a quesadilla with extra cheese and no meat. They also serve beef quesadillas and chicken quesadillas, among others. Even though all pizzas have cheese on them, a “cheese pizza” is a pizza with extra cheese and no meat.
“Shitake” doesn’t mean “mushroom” in English, but a specific kind of Japanese mushroom. So this is not just mushroom soup (in which case it would contain a different kind of mushroom), but soup containing that specific Japanese mushroom.
A similar one would be “Ramen Noodle Soup”. Ramen is a specific type of Japanese-style noodle soup, but the word is opaque to Americans who know absolutely no Japanese, so it’s written like that.
Playing this game in English is a little different from playing it with German. The German examples I gave involve only redundant pairs of German and English words, and almost every German has to study English in school. To avoid the English redundancies you’ve provided, it would require the American to know Russian (or another language that has the word “chai”), Spanish and Japanese. Nobody can learn every language in the world. (And as I said, “cheese quesadilla” is not a redundancy.)
Jamie, these are tautologies, no matter how you want to interpret them. The Chai is filled in tea bags; there is no milk and sugar in there. Besides, I already explained to you that the tautologies you mentioned in German are equally not necessarily the same exact thing. But as usual, you don’t read my messages thoroughly.
