# חוששני



## Maayan

Hi all,

Is there another way of translating _I'm afraid that _but חוששני ?

I'm reviewing my translation to an article, and I noticed that I've used too many חוששני and I'm not comfortable with it.

The writer uses this form a lot _- *I'm afraid that* we have no choice but to... I'm afraid we cannot consider...etc_

I keep coming back to: *חוששני* כי אין לנו אלא לשקול. Is there another way?


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## origumi

Maayan said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Is there another way of translating _I'm afraid that _but חוששני ?
> 
> I'm reviewing my translation to an article, and I noticed that I've used too many חוששני and I'm not comfortable with it.
> 
> The writer uses this form a lot _- *I'm afraid that* we have no choice but to... I'm afraid we cannot consider...etc_
> 
> I keep coming back to: *חוששני* כי אין לנו אלא לשקול. Is there another way?


According to the context you can prefer למרבה הצער, לדאבוני, יתכן, אולם נראה ש, עלול להיות ש and similar.

BTW, חוששני is masculine. חוששתני is feminine.


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## Maayan

origumi said:


> According to the context you can prefer למרבה הצער, לדאבוני, יתכן, אולם נראה ש, עלול להיות ש and similar.
> 
> BTW, חוששני is masculine. חוששתני is feminine.


 
Thanks origumi, but for some reason it doesn't sound right to me:

I'm afraid that we have no choice but to exam these "facts" once again
לצערי/לדאבוני/למרבה הצער אין לנו אלא/עלינו לבחון את ה"עובדות" הללו בשנית

Does it sound right? For some reason I keep thinking that the only word that fits here is חוששני...


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## kishmish

לי "אולם נראה שעלינו לבחון" וכו' נשמע טוב.


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## Maayan

תודה קישמיש 
החלטתי להשמיט את החוששני כדי לא ליצור עומס.


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## rosemarino

Maayan, I'm sure you've long ago finished translating this article but I'm just catching up on reading some threads and I wanted to ask why  the expressions below, suggested by Origumi, didn't sound right to you in Hebrew.


"I'm afraid that we have no choice but to exam these "facts" once again
לצערי/לדאבוני/למרבה הצער אין לנו אלא/עלינו לבחון את ה"עובדות" הללו בשנית

 By the way, I think the translation problem arose because the English isn't very good.  There is really no reason for the writer to begin the sentence, "I am afraid that..."  It doesn't add any meaning to the sentence.  He or she could have more effectively just said, "We have no choice but to examine these facts again."  But if the writer felt a need to begin with a disclaimer of some sort, he or she could have said, "unfortunately," unless the context in some way really justified calling attention to his or her fear.

So why wouldn't לצערי or לדאבוני sound good here?


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## Maayan

Hi Rosemarino,

I'm not a professional translator, just did a favour to a friend 

I tried to be as accurate as possible, but the writer kept repeating the phrase "I'm afraid that...but to". I think 5 or 6 times in a 12 pages article (!) so I had to find something else rather than repeating myself.

There's nothing wrong with Origumi's suggestion, it's just a matter of preferances. 

"I'm afraid that we have no choice but to exam these "facts" once again" - was just one sentence (out of 5-6 in the same format). In this case I took Kishmish' suggestion of the word נראה, omitted the "I'm afraid that" and came up with this:
נראה כי אין לנו אלא לבחון בשנית את ה"עובדות" הללו

I guess נראה sounded more neutral to me than לדאבוני, לצערי, חוששני, למרבה הצער, all of which sounded a bit severe.


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## rosemarino

I see, so maybe you could also have used נדמה ש and/or כנראה, and the writer in English could have replaced "I am afraid that" with "It seems that" and/or "apparently."


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## Maayan

I agree, the writer seemed to be fixated on that phrase when he could have used different formats. Perhaps English isn't his native tongue.


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