Last task

Hi, folks!

Finally our last task! I hope you are not so tired.

I agree with you Juliana, I also think that the best translation for "insurance money" is "dinheiro do seguro". What about the others? Do you agree with us?

So, just to check our choice. There is a very interesting tool on the web called "Google fight". If you are in doubt about which expression is more frequent in English, you just type the two "words" or "expressions" and as a result you get which one is the winner, which is more frequent at the web.

Let's try it. Enter the website Google Fight:

http://www.googlefight.com/#

and check which is the winner: "insurance premium” X insurance prize”

There is another thing I want you to answer to me: How did you enjoy our experience of using the corpora and the web to help us in the translation task?
Did the results surprise you somehow? Would you use these resources for now on when you need to translate a text? Which task did you like the most?

That's it, thanks for your help.

Teacher Lilian.

ps. I am still waiting for your comments about the videos.

FORTH TASK

Here we go!

Juliana, I really liked your comments. I agree with you, "insurance money" stands for "dinheiro do seguro" and "insurance premium" stands for "prêmio do seguro".

I just have some doubt, does the expression "insurance prize" exist?
How will we discover that? Well, let's go to Google again.
Another point is that, you saw that at Cobuild, they only show you part of the corpus, until 40 lines, so it's difficult to state the frequency of the two expressions, so Google will help us with this matter too.

1 - Enter Google website.
2 - Search for "insurance money"
3 - Search for "insurance premium"
4 - Search for "insurance prize"
5 - Answer:
a) How many results do you have for each search? Comment some sentences in order to check what Juliana said according to Cobuild results.
b) Does the expression "insurance prize" exist? What's the meaning of it?
c) Which is the best translation for "insurance money" found in the article about New Orleans?

That's it.
I hope we will be very happy and healthy in 2008 and that we will learn a lot of new things.
See ya.

Still on the third task!

Well guys! I think the task was a kind of complicated, wasn't it?
So I will try to help you in order to make things clear.

The main concern of is task is to answer the questions:
Is there a more specialized term similar to "prêmio do seguro" in English? What would you suggest?

We agreed that "prêmio do seguro" is used in technical texts while "dinheiro do seguro" is more general. So do we have two expressions like these in English?

You will answer to these question doing the following search:
1 - Enter the Cobuild Website - http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx
It is a corpus with lots of texts in English.
2 - Search for insurance+money - when we look for two words here we use plus +
Type it in the space: "Type in your query" and click at "show concs".
3 - Search for insurance+prize.
4 - Search for insurance+premium.

Answer:
a) What are the uses for "insurance money" in English? You can post some examples and comment on them.
b) According to your search results, is there a specialized term in English? (insurance prize or insurance premium)
c) What is the difference between "insurance money" and "insurance premium"?
d) Which other search would you suggest?

See you around.

THIRD TASK

Hello!

Well, I think the girls who answered the previous task got really interesting answers.
In sum, "prêmio do seguro" is a specialized term.
We know that there's the expression "insurance money" in English, since we saw it in the text about Katrina, right?
But is there a more specialized term similar to "prêmio do seguro" in English? What would you suggest?
That's what we will try to answer in this task. Just to remind you, Jaque, we are trying to get to best translation for "insurance money" found in the text we were discussing, the one about New Orleans, do u remember?

OK, that's what you have to do:
1 - Enter the Cobuild Website - http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx
It is a corpus with lots of texts in English.
2 - Search for insurance+money - when we look for two words here we use plus +
Type it in the space: "Type in your query" and click at "show concs".
3 - Search for another expression, a more specialized one in English, similar to "prêmio do seguro" . For example, how do you say "prêmio" in English?
4 - Search only for "insurance" in order to check if there is another expression similar to "prêmio do seguro", ok?

Answer:
a) What are the uses for "insurance money" in English? You can post some examples and comment on them.
b) According to your search results, is there a specialized term in English?
c) What is the difference between the options you have in English for "prêmio/dinheiro do seguro"?
d) Which other search would you suggest?

See you around.

Second Task

Hi, Folks!

I am very happy about your comments in the previous task! That's it!

I asked you to search at NICL corpus because it is a collection of texts in Brazilian Portuguese which are carefully organized. It is a pity we could find only three sentences about "dinheiro/prêmio do seguro", but if you do another search in the future you can find this source as a very valuable one. Even for you Juarez, who doesn't work with language. If you have any doubt about how to say something in Portuguese, you can look for it there.

Okey Dokey. Now the second task.
Since we couldn't find many sentences at NILC corpus, what can we do?
Let's go to the Internet, using Google. Of course the information there is not so trustful, since anyone can publish anything in the web there are lots of bullshit there. But if we consider the great amount of information, it can be a good reference for language usage.

So, let's follow the steps below:
1 - Enter Google website.
2 - Check the item "páginas do Brasil" - it's very important because we need the Brazilian Portuguese.
3 - Type "dinheiro do seguro" in the search - remember to use quotation marks, by doing this the system will look for the three words together.
4 - Type "prêmio do seguro" in the search.
5 - Answer the following questions:
a) How many results did you get for each expression? You see it in the right upper part of the page.
b) What is the difference of use between them? Compare the sentences you get in the Google result page. You don't have to enter any link. You can also post the sentences and comment on them.
c) After this analysis, which is the best translation for "insurance money"? Is this search at Google enough for answering this question? What other questions would you make?

Thanks for your help again!
Yours.

NEW TASK - insurance money

Guys, that's the following!

I changed my mind. Since we do not have more time (Juliana told me we have to give the paper in until January 7) I will do something different.
We will not discuss another text anymore. I will give you more time for the listening task, because I want to see everybody's answers, ok?

In meantime, I will post other tasks about translation. Do you remember that you had to translate the expression "insurance money"? All of you agreed that the best translation was "dinheiro do seguro". We made a search at a parallel corpus, called COMPARA, but we could not find the two words together. It was very surprising for some of you that the translation in the National Geographic Brasil was "prêmio do seguro".

So in the next classes, we will discuss which is the best translation for "insurance money". How will we do it? Well I have in mind around four tasks. So it is very important that you answer them every day. Only if you do so, we will finish on time, ok?

FIRST TASK: Does the expression "prêmio do seguro" exist in Portuguese? If so, what is the difference between "prêmio do seguro" and "dinheiro do seguro"?

For answering these questions we will have to search some databases and in the Internet. Follow these steps:

1 - Enter the website: www.linguateca.pt
2 - There click at ACESSO A RECURSOS.
3 - Click at AC/DC
4 - Click at Acesso
5 - Click at NILC/São Carlos
6 - Where it is writen "procurar" type: “prêmio” “do” “seguro”
It is important to type each word between quotation marks, that's how the system works.
7 - Type: “dinheiro” “do” “seguro”

You will see some sentences where these expressions occur. All the sentences are from the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.
ANSWER IN THE BLOG: What could you conclude after this search? If you want you can post the sentences and comment on them, ok?

See you tomorrow.
Yours

P.s. Don't forget the listening task. We will discuss it too.

Still the listening

Hi, my dear students!

How was your Xmas party?

Well, I talked to Juliana and she said that the listening tasks are very difficult. Guys, don't worry about the questions I did. Just write what you could understand from the listening.

I want to read your comments in order to finish our discussion about New Orleans, ok? I will be waiting for your posts until tomorrow.

See ya.