Wiktionary talk:Translations/Link to a PART of a foreign Wiktionary article


 * from Wiktionary talk:Translations Rod (A. Smith) 21:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

<130.120.105.237 16:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)>I'm a new foreign user, and I'm not sure this is the right place to ask questions, but I couldn't find any more appropriate place.


 * 1) How to make a link to a foreign Wiktionary entry ?


 * 2) It's frequent that an English word has several translations, according to circumstances, in another language. But each of these foreign words may also have different translations in English.

For instance, "to weigh" is usually translated by "peser" in French, but "to weigh anchor" is "lever l'ancre". "Lever" is to be translated in English usually as "to lift", but "lever la séance" is "to close the meeting", and "lever" is also a French noun: "un lever de soleil" is "a sunrise". In Cambridge Klett COMPACT dictionary, there are not less than 9 completely different English translations for "lever", plus some for "se lever" (and 6 different translation of "peser").

Of course, they may also be different translations of "lever" into many other languages than English, which will make "lever" entry very long.

What about the translations of "to do" and "faire" ? Have a look here: Translations of "to do" into French in a compact dictionary. When translating "to weigh anchor", I'd like to point to the relevant meaning in the should-be long "lever" article, not to refer the whole article.

How to refer a part of an article in Wiktionary ?


 * Of course you've chosen some of the most difficult words to translate. This is one big problem with machine translations.  You can't translate "I am hot" literally to "Je suis chaud[e]", when the intention is to say "J'ai chaud."  English will use the same construction for both meanings, and an English speaking person will understand the different meanings from the context.  "Weigh anchor" is highly idiomatic, and thus requires special explanation.  From here lever would take you to that article in this Wiktionary.  To see the term on the French Wiktionary go to fr:lever  Eclecticology 21:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 This example is not exceptional at all. Just open an English->other language, and then other language->English serious dictionary, and see the proportion of words with more than 2 meanings and translations. Such words are the large majority.