My Precious

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
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janMato
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My Precious

Post by janMato »

Translation challenge!
“Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost!” (Gollum)
o pakala e mi o moli e mi! mani mi li weka!

That sort of makes sense, since it's a gold ring and probably could be used as currency.
We take refuge in the Three Jewels: the precious Buddha as our guide, the precious Dharma as the path, and the precious Sangha as our companions.
mi kulupu li tawa kiwen kule pi nanpa tu wan: jan Puta mani(?) li jan pali pi sona pi ma mi, nasin Puta mani(?) li nasin lon ma mi, kulupu Puta mani(?) li jan poka pi mi mute.

mani doesn't seem appropriate here, in part because the word seems to close to the English one.
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: My Precious

Post by janKipo »

Boy, I've just been looking at the latest eng-tp dictionary and it is dispiriting to see how much isn't there -- even amongst stuff that is known. Even "crush" (surely either 'ko' or 'kiwen') and "curse" ('wile ike'?) are not there, let alone "precious". But 'pakala' works generically (I wish we could get the alliteration) 'mani' is nice, as would be 'wile'. "refuge" (Buddham *sarinam* gacchami) is 'selo' but I don't know a tidy way to do the construction: 'mi tawa jan Puta tawa selo', I suppose, or something with 'sama' (which sounds weak).
Don't need 'pi' with 'nanpa' or number strings -- and don't want 'nanpa' here anyhow (cardinal, not ordinal)
"guide" is usually 'lawa; but that is probably too active for this context, as is 'pali', come to that. Maybe 'pana'?
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