# BCS: U duhu jezika



## kumquatlemon

Kako bi preveli izraz 'u duhu hrvatskog jezika'?


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## sokol

Preveli na koji jezik? Na engleski, ili drugi?


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## Sobakus

Doesn't the English expression "in the spirit of smth" mean the same? I see it often used with the names of famous people.


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## kumquatlemon

Sorry. Da, na engleski.


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## kumquatlemon

'In the spirit of Croatian language'
That sounds ok to you?


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## sokol

Well, I don't really think so, or at least a linguist would not use those words (it sounds too 'poetic' in English for a grammatical statement, and a statement about grammaticality this is supposed to be, or isn't it?).

Could you give the context in which this should fit? A grammarian, as said, rather would use terms like grammaticality.


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## kumquatlemon

Da, rečenica govori o tome kako tekst ne mora biti preveden doslovno ali mora biti 'u duhu hrvatskog jezika'.


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## Sobakus

Well, I'm a Russian so it sounds ok to me, but I'm not sure what exactly it would mean in English: "characteristic of something", or "keeping something in mind", or maybe "along the lines of". This article suggests it's ok in the "characteristic of" meaning.


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## VelikiMag

kumquatlemon said:


> 'In the spirit of Croatian language'
> That sounds ok to you?



Meni se ipak nekako čini da Englezi ne bi baš tako rekli, iako bi vjerovatno razumjeli smisao. Možda bi se moglo reći _within the norms of..._ ili nešto slično tome. Najbolje je da pitaš na dijelu foruma za engleski i dobiješ odgovor od izvornih govornika.


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## iobyo

sokol said:


> Well, I don't really think so, or at least a linguist would not use those words (it sounds too 'poetic' in English for a grammatical statement, and a statement about grammaticality this is supposed to be, or isn't it?).



This phrase is very common in both BCS and Macedonian. It refers to something which is representative of the language in question and in many cases, distinguishing. For example, a non-literal translation from one language to another would be "in the spirit of the language" because it would be more typical of how a native would put the concept into words intuitively. 

Almost anything can be referred to in this way: the word _zarez _can be said to be in the spirit of the Serbian language, _zapeta _in the spirit of the Croatian language, but both are acceptable in each standard. So, by definition, this phrase is not at all meant to be precise.


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## sokol

Hello ioboyo,

I wasn't sure but I expected this to be something like that.  Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how this should be translated properly to English. Possibly Sobakus' suggestion is better than the literal one (using 'spirit'), I just can't imagine an English native speaker using 'spirit' in this context.


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## DenisBiH

Don't we use the term "idiomatic" sometimes in this forum to denote this concept?

Here's an example that seems to parallel the usage of "u duhu jezika".



> *To  learn how to translate idiomatically*, i.e. to express the content of  the German text in a form of English that reads, as far as possible, as  if the text had been originally produced in English and does not betray  its German origins.


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## sokol

Yes indeed, "idiomatic" oftentimes is used for that: how could I not think of that! It should be first choice here, I agree.


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## iobyo

"Idiomatic" does indeed fit well.

See this (excerpts from dictionaries) as well.


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## kumquatlemon

Idiomatic! That's it! Thanks ya'll.


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