Get Back To The Group Free Cards

May 26, 2010 6:01 AM

English to Italian/Greek Translation

I need to have the following two sentences translated into both Italian and Greek:

"I have been separated from my tour group. Please help me use the phone to dial this number."

This is for the "Get Out of Jail Free" cards that were suggested in response to my previous question.

Thank you so much for your help!

posted by mmmbacon to writing & language (7 answers total)

I can help with the Greek part.

Χάθηκα απ'το ταξιδιωτικό γκρουπ μου. Παρακαλώ βοηθήστε με να τηλεφωνήσω τον εξής αριθμό: [enter phone number]
posted by mkdirusername at 7:36 AM on May 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've had a long day*, so you might want to see what one of our mother tongue MeFItalians say but in essence:

"Sono stato separato dal mio gruppo scolastico. Per favore, aiutatemi a chiamare il numero seguente:"

I've made one small change based on your previous question, from "tour group" to "school group" as the latter (I hope) has a marginally larger chance of creating empathy rather than "Ah, ha! Easy Tourist Prey!"

*The translation part of my brain is hovering on the borderline of "I can barely make a coherent sentence in my own mother tongue."
posted by romakimmy at 9:53 AM on May 26, 2010

mkdirusername mostly has the Greek part. Just a trivial correction, στον instead of τον:

Χάθηκα απ'το ταξιδιωτικό γκρουπ μου. Παρακαλώ βοηθήστε με να τηλεφωνήσω στον εξής αριθμό: [enter phone number]
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:47 AM on May 26, 2010

Romakimmy (as usual) has got it pretty good. A couple of suggestions for fine-tuning the Italian:

1. write "separato/separata" and explain that males should use the former, females the latter.

2. rather than "il numero seguente" (which is a little formal and would be used in a letter, like "the following number") maybe better "questo numero" (meaning exactly your "this number" and assumes the speaker is pointing to it.
posted by aqsakal at 12:53 PM on May 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think, στον εξης αριθμό is is better than τον εξής αριθμό.

Στον reads strangely. It's like saying "[call] in the following number".
This is because στον usually used to designate direction from one place to another (πάω στο σπίτι μου/I'm going home) or to talk about how something is in relation to something else (είμαι στο σπίτι μου/I'm at home).

But in this case, we want to use the accusative. Call ---> this number. Which is served by τον.

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posted by mkdirusername at 6:19 PM on May 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't speak for the grammatical part of this, but I can assure you nobody say να τηλεφωνήσω τον αριθμό here in Greece.

Even when talking about the person on the other end of the line, you say να τηλεφωνήσω στο Γιώργο, not να τηλεφωνήσω το Γιώργο. To confuse matters further, if you use the more informal πάρω τηλέφωνο, you do say τον, as in να πάρω τον αριθμό 123456 or να πάρω το Γιώργο τηλέφωνο.
posted by Dr Dracator at 10:50 PM on May 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thank you guys so much for all your help!
posted by mmmbacon at 8:27 AM on June 8, 2010