# Pomoc w tłumaczeniu zdania



## pachnidlo

Cześć, jestem tu nowa. Jak przetłumaczyć na angielski - Przez krótką chwilę pomyślałam, że znowu możemy być razem.

I thought for short moment that we can be again together.


----------



## dreamlike

Witaj na forum  Jeśli chcesz to oddać w trochę poetycki albo refleksyjny sposób, możesz napisać tak:


_For the briefest moment I thought we can be together again. _

"for the briefest moment" bardzo dobrze sprawdza się w takich kontekstach.


----------



## LilianaB

Yes, I agree. If you want to be less poetic, you can say: for a moment I thought that we could be together again. In fact, it has to be the Simple Past Tense in the previous sentence as well.


----------



## myfakename

LilianaB said:


> Yes, I agree. If you want to be less poetic, you can say: for a moment I thought that we could be together again. In fact, it has to be the Simple Past Tense in the previous sentence as well.


Thumbs up for this one. And as Liliana said, dreamlike's version has to be corrected: For the briefest moment I thought we *could* be together again.


----------



## dreamlike

Well, Liliana's version is fine, but Polish sentence is not something one would be very likely to hear in everyday conversation, it strikes me as being quite poetic - for that reason "For the briefest moment" could be a better choice. 

You're right with your correction, Liliana, I was too quick and didn't give it enough thought.


----------



## JarekSteliga

How about "It crossed my mind that ...." ? Not poetic, but solid English.

If an idea or thought crosses your mind, you think about it for a short time (often + _that_ )


----------



## LilianaB

I think _it crossed my mind_ has a different meaning.


----------



## Szkot

_It crossed my mind_ means what Jarek says it means, although it sounds very unromantic in the context, as if it was a casual thought that was not very important.


----------



## dreamlike

As much as I like this expression, it doesn't really fit in the context here. It's normally used in reference to rather mundane things, and love certainly does not qualify as such.

_It crossed my mind that we could be together again - _it doesn't sound good, to put it mildly. 

When it comes to translations, they should be as close to the original as possible, and "it crossed my mind" is nowhere near the original sentence. I hate repeating myself, but the original sentence is not everyday Polish - I'd even go so far as to say it's poetic. I'll stick to my guns - "For the briefest moment" is the most apt translation.


----------



## LilianaB

No, it does not, I am sorry Szkot. Not in this context. It does not express whatever the poster wants to express. It has crossed my mind that there is a meeting tomorrow. It has crossed my mind that the weather may change. It sounds kind of awkward.  It _crossed my mind we could be together again_. It does not express any feelings: just a dry expression. I do not think it fits in this context. #8.


----------



## dreamlike

I'm glad we see eye to eye on this, Liliana, for once at least


----------



## Szkot

JarekSteliga said:


> How about "It crossed my mind that ...." ? Not poetic, but solid English.
> 
> If an idea or thought crosses your mind, you think about it for a short time (often + _that_ )



That is what Jarek said, and that is what the phrase means, LB.  As I said, and as Dreamlike has since said, and as you are saying, it does not sound right in the context.  So we all agree - nice phrase, shame about the context.


----------



## dreamlike

That sounds like a fair summary, Szkot


----------



## majlo

I think you need a very specific context to say 'It crossed my mind that we could be together'. Thus, I'd exclude this translation here.


----------



## sorghum

"Przez krótką chwilę pomyślałam, że znowu możemy być razem".

Ja przetłumaczyłbym to jako: "For a fleeting moment, I thought we could be together again".


----------



## LilianaB

No, I don't think so.


----------



## dreamlike

This sounds equally poetic as "For the briefest moment", so I think it works here. Shouldn't it be "For *the* fleeting moment", though?


----------



## majlo

Liliana, do you really want to say that you're not superficially inflating your post count? What on earth do you mean by "No, I don't think so."? It's not the first time I've seen posts without content coming from you.


----------



## LilianaB

Do people your age or in your environment inflate post counts? I have even no concept of it. What would such a nonsensical behavior be for,  or what would anyone in sound mind  do it for? Maybe in kindergarden children have fun collecting stars, but past that time it seems a little bit ridiculous.  I do not think the translation is appropriate because it sounds too sweet. It is not appropriate for the time and place: it might be good for a story which takes place in another time.

I think even your students would not be doing something like that. You are just projecting a lot of things on other people.


----------



## Szkot

dreamlike said:


> This sounds equally poetic as "For the briefest moment", so I think it works here. Shouldn't it be "For *the* fleeting moment", though?



No, I don't think so .  *A *brief/fleeting moment  but *the* briefest /most fleeting moment.  (I don't recommend 'most fleeting', but it would be with *the*).  Fleeting scores very high on poetic-ness.


----------



## dreamlike

Liliana, I'm guess you're as preoccupied with "different things" as ever, but couldn't you make the effort to write what is that you don't like about "fleeting moment" in your first post? On the face of it, it really looks like "post count inflating" but I think we're all too old for this kind of behaviour... what purpose would it serve anyway...


----------



## LilianaB

I don't know what post inflating is: I know only about inflatable balloons. As to the rest, I agree with Szkot.


----------



## dreamlike

Use your imagination. I might've coined a new term. Why did you leave this question unanswered? 




> but couldn't you make the effort to write what is that you don't like about "fleeting moment" in your first post?



Does it really take two post to share your reservations?


----------



## LilianaB

I think I could not write it at that moment; maybe I was not sure what I did not like about this translation: I naturally did not like something about it. You could call it sloppiness, but inflation would be something absurd, especially if you mean post inflation or postal inflation or whatever it is.


----------



## dreamlike

I did not call it "post inflation." If you had read my post carefully, you would've known that I don't suspect anyone on this forum to be so inmature as to care about such petty thing like  post count. I can think of more apt words than "sloppiness", dismissive attitude towards other contributors to this board springs to my mind...


----------



## LilianaB

You can put: human error, as the reason. I probably assumed that it was self-evident the translation was not right in that context, that' all. It is human to err.


----------



## sorghum

With reference to most of what LilianaB has written above, I'll answer in kind: No, I don't think so.

Back to the original sentence, if we're talking about someone briefly indulging their imagination in the rekindling of a former romance, then using the expression "for a fleeting moment" (which is poetic, but certainly not over-flowery) seems perfectly appropriate to me. 

For something more neutral, "Just for a moment" sounds more natural than "For the briefest moment", in my opinion. But hey, what do I know .


----------



## LilianaB

I would imagine Jane Eyre could say it, but not a young girl in Connecticut.


----------



## dreamlike

Speaking of "erring", Liliana, I think you err on the side of being concise far too often. (I'm alluding to "I don't think so" and other one-line posts of yours, let me say, in case you didn't notice). 

sorghum - I think we're dealing with "romantic" context here rather than neutral. I think you're right with your interpretation, except it's "her" imagination, not theirs. 
*Przez krótką chwilę pomyślałam, że znowu możemy być razem.*


----------



## LilianaB

It is not for you to decide how often a person should err.


----------



## pachnidlo

Dziękuję za pomoc. 

Którą wersję najlepiej wybrać? To zdanie potrzebne mi jest do opowiadania i ma być trochę romantyczne i "poetyckie"


----------



## LilianaB

Where is the story set: the US, Britain, somewhere else?
Could you provide the preceding line and the one that follows it.


----------



## pachnidlo

Poland. Musi być po angielsku bo to opowiadanie na lekcję. Nie będę się chwaliła swoimi wypocinami po angielsku lepiej, podam po polsku:

Po raz pierwszy od rozstania spotkaliśmy się po dwóch miesiącach. Dobrze nam się rozmawiało. Przez krótką chwilę pomyślałam, że znowu możemy być razem. Ale wtedy to jeszcze nie było możliwe.


----------



## dreamlike

​Moja wersja *

It was after three months that we've met for the first time since our split-up. We had a nice conversation. For the briefest moment I thought we could be together again. But it wasn't yet possible at the/that time*.


----------



## LilianaB

For a brief moment I thought we could be together again, I would chose this one.


----------



## majlo

dreamlike said:


> *
> 
> It was after three months that we've met for the first time since our split-up.*



I believe it should've been, 'that we'd met...'.


----------



## dreamlike

And you're probably right, grammar has never been my strong suit - I'll give more attention to it during my English studies


----------



## LilianaB

We met for the first time two months after we had parted. We had a nice conversation. For a brief moment I thought that we could be together again, but it was still impossible then.


----------



## sorghum

dreamlike said:


> Speaking of "erring", Liliana, I think you err on the side of being concise far too often. (I'm alluding to "I don't think so" and other one-line posts of yours, let me say, in case you didn't notice).
> 
> sorghum - I think we're dealing with "romantic" context here rather than neutral. I think you're right with your interpretation, except it's "her" imagination, not theirs.
> *Przez krótką chwilę pomyślałam, że znowu możemy być razem.*


Yep, I was just using the impersonal "their" there.


----------

