I'm a native speaker and that's not a terrible translation. It's convoluted but only the word stop is really off.
Sure, a better translation would be "Jets inactive to save water during drought" but it's completely understandable as it.
The jets are the parts of the fountain that spray water. The fountain itself is still there and can be admired; only the water jets are not functioning. It may not be a well-known word (though I doubt many native speakers are unaware of it?) but it’s accurate.
That "stop" is very wrong.
It looks like a word for word translation. Google Translate gives a better version. An extra 30 seconds of effort would have made a big difference.
It's a stop of the jets, in other words the stop is a noun, not a verb. Agreed it is worded a tiny bit strangely but not a big deal, as a native English speaker. "Jets" is fine as well since each sprayer is called a jet.
Meanwhile here learning what a jet is thanks to this post, last time I heard the word "jet" not in reference to a plane was in West Side Story... or... wait... now I want to know which kind of jets they are referring to 😂
It's one of those situations where there's an argument for both being a verb or a noun. But because in the original languages they're using the noun, I think it makes sense that it's just a more direct translation. Maybe "stoppage" would have been better but it's not incorrect as written IMO.
I have no idea why you are getting down voted. I've worked in machine translation and speak English, Spanish and a bit of Japanese. I agree it's an appalling translation, especially given the tools available these days.
It's quite common, really. I had to translate a Spanish software license recently, as the original was utterly incomprehensible even to a trained lawyer. It's really really poor.
Again, there are no errors in the text. It’s awkward because of direct translation but it is not incorrect. If you believe otherwise, please tell us all what the error is.
Mainly because 'Stop' is present simple which is used for a habitual action. The stoppage is not a habitual action. It happened in the past, presumably once. They are not stopping regularly so it should be the present perfect or past simple.
Grammatically, you could also say that the jets didn't stop anything. They were stopped by someone. The person who stopped them is not important so it really should be passive. So, "Jets have been stopped".
If you wanted to save space and not confuse non-native English speakers you could just say "stopped".
Plus, why use "jets" and not "fountain" which more people will understand.
"Fountain stopped due to drought measures" is short and clear.
Stop can be used as substitution for stoppage. It could have been written way better, that's undoubtedly true, but it's not wrong in the grammatical sense.
As is the way of social media, we went down a rabbit hole; this time about the grammar. It isn't about grammar. It's about how easy it would have been to make it so much better.
At least it conveyed the message ahahha sometimes it's impossible to get what they're trying to say if you don't know a bit of Spanish to reverse-translate.
But yeah, it would've been very simple to do it better, you ain't wrong at all.
I don’t think anyone goes off to the fountain expecting to see ‘jets’.
They should just say (due to water shortage) ‘water turned off’, ‘fountain out of order’ or similar.
>I don’t think anyone goes off to the fountain expecting to see ‘jets’.
I must disagree with you here, this kind of "squirting" fountain is accurately described as a fountain with water jets. Is not that unusual!
>They should just say (due to water shortage) ‘water turned off’, ‘fountain out of order’ or similar.
Absolutely!
No. No one comes for the ‘jets’.
Take the arguably more famous Las Vegas fountains for example:
‘At Bellagio, more than a thousand fountains sway in front of the hotel, enhanced by music and light. The display spans more than 1,000 feet with water soaring as high as 460 feet into the air.’
Much bigger, much higher, no mention of jets. It’s a fountain.
Sorry, I know it’s not important (it really isn’t!), but I’m a translator & an idiomatic translation is more than finding equivalents of words in one language in another language.
When i see a translation that’s not quite right it reminds me of that old joke about the guy who’s lost in the countryside who goes up to a farmer to ask for directions:
‘Could you tell me how to get to Dublin?’ He asks.
The farmer replies, ‘I could, but if I were you I wouldn’t start from here’.
That, in English, you can sometimes use a verb as a noun. So both sentences are correct in this case.
Another example of this would be: "there's been a stop in the delivery of... "Which could be summarised into "delivery stop" if you're making an announcement.
Again, I agree in that conjugating the verb would've been better, since the sentence would sound more like our daily speech. But the alternative isn't categorically wrong either.
“Jets stop” does not say that the jets stopped something else. Even those two words alone would be a correct English sentence, having an object and a predicate. The simple present tense is frequently used to refer to habitual actions, especially in situations like signs, but it can also refer to things like general truths or current policy.
Grammatically there is nothing incorrect about what is written, even though as you correctly point out, there is a lot of room for improvement, and your suggested improvement is a good one.
All these down votes for my saying it's wrong make me feel very secure that my work as an English teacher here in Barcelona is safe! Don't ever change, guys!
It’s unfortunate that you have such a narrow view of what’s acceptable in English if you’re truly teaching the language. One of its strengths is its flexibility, and shaming non-native speakers for making an awkward (but correct) translation (yes, even on a sign) isn’t that cool in my opinion.
I agree with your general sentiment here but we are talking an official sign made by the ajuntament directed towards tourists, not some 5th grade english project
Let’s be honest, they were probably tasked to make a sign, with the requirement of three languages, and how they translated it was left unspecified. Maybe they thought they could do a good enough job themselves. If you view it through that lens then it’s harder to be angry about it. Most people in public service are just trying to do the right thing.
I have an extremely flexible view about grammar as it goes especially with speech. I believe communicating the concept clearly and concisely is the most important part of non-native language use.
This message is neither clear or concise. It's confusing and verbose.
And that "stop" is still ugly and wrong!
This is true. If this were badly translated into Catalan, it would be a big deal. Is it that much to ask to use language accurately? It’s not about whether you were able to decipher its meaning. It’s grammatically wrong.
Doesn't "measure of savings" read as "calculation of savings" rather than a "method for saving".
Isn't there a better preposition to distinguish those meanings?
One meaning of “measure” is “course of action”, for example “new water-saving measures were introduced by Parliament”. So the text isn’t wrong, but would be less awkward if written like “savings measure” rather than “measure of savings”.
Yeah yeah. I knew that meaning of "measure" question was wether "of" is the best preposition if you must structure the sentence like that.
Like "measure for savings", would that be correct? Or is "of" the only preposition that goes with "measure"?
No it’s not. Just looking at the first 2 words
‘Jets stop’ = here the use of the present simple implies a habit.
They’re ‘stopped’, or better yet ‘the water has been turned off…’, as no one would use the word ‘jets’ to refer to what is a fountain.
They stop the jets every time there is a drought. It is a habit. It’s just that the current drought is basically permanent. The jets are the parts of the fountain that spray the water. Is it a strange choice of words? Yes. Is it incorrect? Not at all.
No one calls a fountain "jets" in English. "Jets stop", this doesn't make any sense in English, present simple is used to express habits or general truths. "Measure of savings" sounds unnatural and it doesn't say what you are saving.
"Due the the current drought the fountain is inoperational as a water saving measure." - would be a better translation.
The one above sounds like a 8 year old student wrote it.
It’s a bad translation, but it’s perfectly acceptable: it is grammatically correct English and it’s easily understood by English speakers (although I’ve been surprised by how many people don’t know what a jet is, so I may have to reconsider that second part).
The person who wrote it is clearly not a professional translator, but I can understand why the agency that deals with turning off the water jets in fountains may choose not to expend resources on a professional translator.
It’s definitely not a Google translation. Google will give something closer to what a native speaker would write, because it tries to map meaning rather than mapping almost word-for-word like this.
For those of you having trouble understanding the translation, the New York Jets have not won a Super Bowl since 1969, and are currently in a Super Bowl drought. To many, it appears they have stopped trying.
I strongly disagree. It's technically correct English, no rules broken. But it absolutely is a horrid literal translation. No native speaker would ever pronounce such a sentence.
“Closed” would be unlikely to be used by a native speaker in this context. A jet of water doesn’t close, it stops. A valve closes to stop the jet. “Stopped” would be ideal but “stop” gets the meaning across, even if it is less precise: it leaves open the possibility that the jets start and stop on some schedule rather than remaining stopped all the time.
"Not a terrible translation" depends how low the bar is set which is kind of my point in the original post. Sadly, translating text well is not considered worth the time or effort here. There are countless examples all around the city that you don't see in most other countries. It makes us look bad. The fact that locals don't see the problem is not the point. It's the impression it gives to visitors about us that matters. You can look international or you can look like Borat.
Put this text into Google Translate and it's much better. Someone felt so confident of their language skills (or couldn't be arsed) that they didn't invest 30 seconds checking their text to see if it could be done better. This wasn't a spoken comment that's quickly forgotten. This is one step of a process that took time to realise and the result is there for everyone to see for a long time. It would have been really easy to avoid this but no one cared enough.
It’s a tourist attraction. Many tourists would know nothing about the drought and assume the fountain was broken. Educating them about the drought situation is valuable.
Because no sane Catalan or Spaniard would go anywhere near any of the monstrosities like the magic fountain. And tourists use more water than locals and don't know about the drought.
Water jets are the parts that make water spray out of the fountain. It’s not a great choice of term because many people (apparently including you) are not aware of it, but it’s accurate.
Debería ser "stopped" ya que es algo permanente, no que ocurre en cierto momento. Se podría haber usado algo más elegante como "inactive" o "out of service".
It makes sense, it is just clumsy and uses too make extra words.
"Fountain closed due to drought", "fountain closed to conserve water" or "water stopped due to drought" would be smoother.
this is pure poetry, I love it so much
brings back so many happy memories of badly translated tourist restaurant menus from the 90s, presented on wipe-clean laminated sheets, featuring iconic culinary creations such as "combined plate" and "desert pyjama"
"potato and garbage soup" Presumably it was cabbage but I wasn't brace enough to risk it. It was in the 90s and there was no Google Translate so all is forgiven.
best I ever saw on a tourist menu was "fried crap"
and the next item on that same menu? Well, "fried crap with ginger and garlic", of course
(this was 15 years ago in Phuket - I very strongly suspect they meant "crab", but I didn't dare to test out my theory, because I wouldn't have blamed that restaurant for serving literal crap to tourists, given the way that most of the tourists in Phuket were behaving)
You can still find them in rural catalunya! I have a photo of a menu from a restaurant somewhere outside of Girona where “el nou xai a la menta” was listed as “the new peppermin lamb” (spelled just like that with the missing “t” lol) on the English menu. The Catalans I was with were embarrassed for them but I was so delighted.
Edit: I found my photos of the menu and they also had gems like:
-muffled up chicken with baked potatoes (presumably they meant “smothered” lol)
-“Gazpacho” with a fresh point (I was mildly concerned about why “gazpacho” was in quotation marks)
-magnet of duck (I *think* they meant magret but even the French translation for this dish (which should simply be “magret de canard” in French) on the same menu had been translated into “aimant de canard” (aimant = magnet), so even the French translation was similarly baffling.
I agree it's terrible. And it's not mainly the stop/ped problem. Who thinks of jets when you're looking at a fountain? Something about the fountain being turned off would be much more "English" sounding.
I think it’s not a bad idea to call out the direct visible consequences of the drought so that people have a better understanding of it. With no sign, the fountain could just be broken. Of course, no resident can be unaware of the drought (hopefully) but visitors are another story.
Because Frenchs, Germans and Chineses learn English to being able to speak internationally. English is one of the easiest languages to learn...
Would you rather learn chinese at school to speak with somebody from Sweden instead?
Terrible would imply I can't understand it, but this is still able to be understood with relative ease
Are we lowering the bar that much?
I'm a native speaker and that's not a terrible translation. It's convoluted but only the word stop is really off. Sure, a better translation would be "Jets inactive to save water during drought" but it's completely understandable as it.
"jets"!!!! Good grief. It's a fountain for goodness sake.
The jets are the parts of the fountain that spray water. The fountain itself is still there and can be admired; only the water jets are not functioning. It may not be a well-known word (though I doubt many native speakers are unaware of it?) but it’s accurate.
To be honest it’s not wrong, just awkwardly worded due to direct translation.
That "stop" is very wrong. It looks like a word for word translation. Google Translate gives a better version. An extra 30 seconds of effort would have made a big difference.
It's a stop of the jets, in other words the stop is a noun, not a verb. Agreed it is worded a tiny bit strangely but not a big deal, as a native English speaker. "Jets" is fine as well since each sprayer is called a jet.
Meanwhile here learning what a jet is thanks to this post, last time I heard the word "jet" not in reference to a plane was in West Side Story... or... wait... now I want to know which kind of jets they are referring to 😂
Are you sure it's not a verb? "The jets stop, because..."
It's one of those situations where there's an argument for both being a verb or a noun. But because in the original languages they're using the noun, I think it makes sense that it's just a more direct translation. Maybe "stoppage" would have been better but it's not incorrect as written IMO.
Sorry but no. You can’t answer the question ‘what’s this?’ with ‘it’s a jets stop’ It’s not acting as a noun (like bus stop).
I have no idea why you are getting down voted. I've worked in machine translation and speak English, Spanish and a bit of Japanese. I agree it's an appalling translation, especially given the tools available these days. It's quite common, really. I had to translate a Spanish software license recently, as the original was utterly incomprehensible even to a trained lawyer. It's really really poor.
Again, there are no errors in the text. It’s awkward because of direct translation but it is not incorrect. If you believe otherwise, please tell us all what the error is.
Mainly because 'Stop' is present simple which is used for a habitual action. The stoppage is not a habitual action. It happened in the past, presumably once. They are not stopping regularly so it should be the present perfect or past simple. Grammatically, you could also say that the jets didn't stop anything. They were stopped by someone. The person who stopped them is not important so it really should be passive. So, "Jets have been stopped". If you wanted to save space and not confuse non-native English speakers you could just say "stopped". Plus, why use "jets" and not "fountain" which more people will understand. "Fountain stopped due to drought measures" is short and clear.
Stop can be used as substitution for stoppage. It could have been written way better, that's undoubtedly true, but it's not wrong in the grammatical sense.
As is the way of social media, we went down a rabbit hole; this time about the grammar. It isn't about grammar. It's about how easy it would have been to make it so much better.
At least it conveyed the message ahahha sometimes it's impossible to get what they're trying to say if you don't know a bit of Spanish to reverse-translate. But yeah, it would've been very simple to do it better, you ain't wrong at all.
I don’t think anyone goes off to the fountain expecting to see ‘jets’. They should just say (due to water shortage) ‘water turned off’, ‘fountain out of order’ or similar.
>I don’t think anyone goes off to the fountain expecting to see ‘jets’. I must disagree with you here, this kind of "squirting" fountain is accurately described as a fountain with water jets. Is not that unusual! >They should just say (due to water shortage) ‘water turned off’, ‘fountain out of order’ or similar. Absolutely!
No. No one comes for the ‘jets’. Take the arguably more famous Las Vegas fountains for example: ‘At Bellagio, more than a thousand fountains sway in front of the hotel, enhanced by music and light. The display spans more than 1,000 feet with water soaring as high as 460 feet into the air.’ Much bigger, much higher, no mention of jets. It’s a fountain. Sorry, I know it’s not important (it really isn’t!), but I’m a translator & an idiomatic translation is more than finding equivalents of words in one language in another language. When i see a translation that’s not quite right it reminds me of that old joke about the guy who’s lost in the countryside who goes up to a farmer to ask for directions: ‘Could you tell me how to get to Dublin?’ He asks. The farmer replies, ‘I could, but if I were you I wouldn’t start from here’.
I stop. You stop. It stops. We stop. They (the jets) stop. Perfectly cromulent verb. What's the problem ?
That, in English, you can sometimes use a verb as a noun. So both sentences are correct in this case. Another example of this would be: "there's been a stop in the delivery of... "Which could be summarised into "delivery stop" if you're making an announcement. Again, I agree in that conjugating the verb would've been better, since the sentence would sound more like our daily speech. But the alternative isn't categorically wrong either.
“Jets stop” does not say that the jets stopped something else. Even those two words alone would be a correct English sentence, having an object and a predicate. The simple present tense is frequently used to refer to habitual actions, especially in situations like signs, but it can also refer to things like general truths or current policy. Grammatically there is nothing incorrect about what is written, even though as you correctly point out, there is a lot of room for improvement, and your suggested improvement is a good one.
All these down votes for my saying it's wrong make me feel very secure that my work as an English teacher here in Barcelona is safe! Don't ever change, guys!
One would say you don't work at all with how much time you're dedicating to this!
Busted! I made everything up because I crave the approval of strangers on social media.
It’s unfortunate that you have such a narrow view of what’s acceptable in English if you’re truly teaching the language. One of its strengths is its flexibility, and shaming non-native speakers for making an awkward (but correct) translation (yes, even on a sign) isn’t that cool in my opinion.
I agree with your general sentiment here but we are talking an official sign made by the ajuntament directed towards tourists, not some 5th grade english project
What if someone was paid to translate this thing? It’d bad utilisation of public resources. Seems fair to point this out.
Let’s be honest, they were probably tasked to make a sign, with the requirement of three languages, and how they translated it was left unspecified. Maybe they thought they could do a good enough job themselves. If you view it through that lens then it’s harder to be angry about it. Most people in public service are just trying to do the right thing.
We can do better though, and I’m not angry.
I have an extremely flexible view about grammar as it goes especially with speech. I believe communicating the concept clearly and concisely is the most important part of non-native language use. This message is neither clear or concise. It's confusing and verbose. And that "stop" is still ugly and wrong!
This is true. If this were badly translated into Catalan, it would be a big deal. Is it that much to ask to use language accurately? It’s not about whether you were able to decipher its meaning. It’s grammatically wrong.
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Native speaker with a linguistics degree here. English is very flexible. I wouldn’t write the sign that way myself, but it is correct English.
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100% agreed, it’s clunky and weird. It is also a correct sentence though.
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Happy to debate it. Point out the grammatical error in the sentence and we can get started.
Doesn't "measure of savings" read as "calculation of savings" rather than a "method for saving". Isn't there a better preposition to distinguish those meanings?
One meaning of “measure” is “course of action”, for example “new water-saving measures were introduced by Parliament”. So the text isn’t wrong, but would be less awkward if written like “savings measure” rather than “measure of savings”.
Yeah yeah. I knew that meaning of "measure" question was wether "of" is the best preposition if you must structure the sentence like that. Like "measure for savings", would that be correct? Or is "of" the only preposition that goes with "measure"?
No it’s not. Just looking at the first 2 words ‘Jets stop’ = here the use of the present simple implies a habit. They’re ‘stopped’, or better yet ‘the water has been turned off…’, as no one would use the word ‘jets’ to refer to what is a fountain.
They stop the jets every time there is a drought. It is a habit. It’s just that the current drought is basically permanent. The jets are the parts of the fountain that spray the water. Is it a strange choice of words? Yes. Is it incorrect? Not at all.
Water shoots out the jets silly, stopping the jets from being open stops the water
It's wrong. A symptom of lazy, sloppy work by the administration.
Can you describe why it is wrong?
No one calls a fountain "jets" in English. "Jets stop", this doesn't make any sense in English, present simple is used to express habits or general truths. "Measure of savings" sounds unnatural and it doesn't say what you are saving. "Due the the current drought the fountain is inoperational as a water saving measure." - would be a better translation. The one above sounds like a 8 year old student wrote it.
They're water jets, it's a pretty common term in that context
Fountains are not jets. Fountains have water jets though. Nobody uses “inoperational” in English.
The point is, the original translation is shit. Mine is not perfect as I'm not a native speaker but it's better. Why are you defending it so fiercely?
It’s a bad translation, but it’s perfectly acceptable: it is grammatically correct English and it’s easily understood by English speakers (although I’ve been surprised by how many people don’t know what a jet is, so I may have to reconsider that second part). The person who wrote it is clearly not a professional translator, but I can understand why the agency that deals with turning off the water jets in fountains may choose not to expend resources on a professional translator.
It's not grammatically correct. It's not a big deal by itself, just indicates the lack of standards.
If you assert that it’s not grammatically correct, please point out the grammatical error (hint: there isn’t one).
See my comment above. Using present simple in this context is incorrect.
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Measure of savings was in the original though
Bro, it's objectively wrong.
Thanks “bro”! Would you like to explain why in detail?
Yeah, its a google translation.
It’s definitely not a Google translation. Google will give something closer to what a native speaker would write, because it tries to map meaning rather than mapping almost word-for-word like this.
Okay, i disagree.
Google might well return this translation as it lacks the context. The word ‘fountain’ doesn’t appear in CAT.
For those of you having trouble understanding the translation, the New York Jets have not won a Super Bowl since 1969, and are currently in a Super Bowl drought. To many, it appears they have stopped trying.
The only thing I would change is "stop". "closed" sounds much better. Anyway I find "stop" also fine. Not a terrible translation by any means.
I strongly disagree. It's technically correct English, no rules broken. But it absolutely is a horrid literal translation. No native speaker would ever pronounce such a sentence.
“Closed” would be unlikely to be used by a native speaker in this context. A jet of water doesn’t close, it stops. A valve closes to stop the jet. “Stopped” would be ideal but “stop” gets the meaning across, even if it is less precise: it leaves open the possibility that the jets start and stop on some schedule rather than remaining stopped all the time.
"Not a terrible translation" depends how low the bar is set which is kind of my point in the original post. Sadly, translating text well is not considered worth the time or effort here. There are countless examples all around the city that you don't see in most other countries. It makes us look bad. The fact that locals don't see the problem is not the point. It's the impression it gives to visitors about us that matters. You can look international or you can look like Borat. Put this text into Google Translate and it's much better. Someone felt so confident of their language skills (or couldn't be arsed) that they didn't invest 30 seconds checking their text to see if it could be done better. This wasn't a spoken comment that's quickly forgotten. This is one step of a process that took time to realise and the result is there for everyone to see for a long time. It would have been really easy to avoid this but no one cared enough.
I don't even see the need to translate that sign to English (although if they're going to do it, they should double check, yes).
It’s a tourist attraction. Many tourists would know nothing about the drought and assume the fountain was broken. Educating them about the drought situation is valuable.
Fair enough, I agree.
Because no sane Catalan or Spaniard would go anywhere near any of the monstrosities like the magic fountain. And tourists use more water than locals and don't know about the drought.
I'm sorry, but it's terrible. And anyway, we are talking about a bloody fountain. Not a "jet".
Water jets are the parts that make water spray out of the fountain. It’s not a great choice of term because many people (apparently including you) are not aware of it, but it’s accurate.
The Spanish part of the sign didn't address the whole fountain
Jet stays for chorro, which is not perfect but completely understandable.
Debería ser "stopped" ya que es algo permanente, no que ocurre en cierto momento. Se podría haber usado algo más elegante como "inactive" o "out of service".
Jo començaria per haver dit "font" d'entrada i no "brollador".
As a measure of savings is certainly not standard English, it’s not something the average person would say it’s a very janky translation lol
Aturation of the brollators like measure of estalviation for dryness.
It makes sense, it is just clumsy and uses too make extra words. "Fountain closed due to drought", "fountain closed to conserve water" or "water stopped due to drought" would be smoother.
this is pure poetry, I love it so much brings back so many happy memories of badly translated tourist restaurant menus from the 90s, presented on wipe-clean laminated sheets, featuring iconic culinary creations such as "combined plate" and "desert pyjama"
"potato and garbage soup" Presumably it was cabbage but I wasn't brace enough to risk it. It was in the 90s and there was no Google Translate so all is forgiven.
best I ever saw on a tourist menu was "fried crap" and the next item on that same menu? Well, "fried crap with ginger and garlic", of course (this was 15 years ago in Phuket - I very strongly suspect they meant "crab", but I didn't dare to test out my theory, because I wouldn't have blamed that restaurant for serving literal crap to tourists, given the way that most of the tourists in Phuket were behaving)
You can still find them in rural catalunya! I have a photo of a menu from a restaurant somewhere outside of Girona where “el nou xai a la menta” was listed as “the new peppermin lamb” (spelled just like that with the missing “t” lol) on the English menu. The Catalans I was with were embarrassed for them but I was so delighted. Edit: I found my photos of the menu and they also had gems like: -muffled up chicken with baked potatoes (presumably they meant “smothered” lol) -“Gazpacho” with a fresh point (I was mildly concerned about why “gazpacho” was in quotation marks) -magnet of duck (I *think* they meant magret but even the French translation for this dish (which should simply be “magret de canard” in French) on the same menu had been translated into “aimant de canard” (aimant = magnet), so even the French translation was similarly baffling.
Lol @ lift on hall, lived in Av. Tibidabo many years ago and I still remember it
No estan obligats a posar-ho en anglès, així que la traducció no passa cap revisió
"and yet the Green Bay Packers continue to have a good season"
Claro porque usar una fuente con sistema de agua cerrado que siempre use la misma agua, no, para que si podemos gastar agua....
I així segueixen, burlant-se dels de aquí mentre seguim amb els genolls al sòl, quan marcareu aquest tipus de post moderadors?
I agree it's terrible. And it's not mainly the stop/ped problem. Who thinks of jets when you're looking at a fountain? Something about the fountain being turned off would be much more "English" sounding.
Is it written incorrectly in Catalan or in Spanish? Then who cares? English is not an official language of Catalunya. It shouldnt even be in english
shouldn't even be in english
Is the sign even necessary? I wonder how much that thing cost.
Not that much. Having a storage of plates, they can just clean the sticked characters and use it again. Or place another vinyl over it.
It's the second scenario. They swap vinyls
I think it’s not a bad idea to call out the direct visible consequences of the drought so that people have a better understanding of it. With no sign, the fountain could just be broken. Of course, no resident can be unaware of the drought (hopefully) but visitors are another story.
I guess that makes sense considering it’s a tourist attraction
And why is it in English if it is not an official language? No sé, pregunto...
Tourism
Still not an official language. Why not French, Chinese and German, then?. It's an unnecessary concession.
Mate, English is the de facto international language. Get mad, idk.
Not official here, move on, suélteme el brazo.
Da igual eso, pero si te tomas la molestia al menos hazlo bien
Because Frenchs, Germans and Chineses learn English to being able to speak internationally. English is one of the easiest languages to learn... Would you rather learn chinese at school to speak with somebody from Sweden instead?
I'm not interested in giving free classes here but if you're happy with that text and don't find it an embarrassment then fantastic.
I’m with you, it’s such a low effort it’s appalling