Will you be my second opinion to Dr. Google Translate?

February 9, 2021 2:28 PM

I need to make pins that say "I Speak [Language]" in said language, for multilingual staff to wear at events, without any access to the staff who speak the languages. I am wary of relying on Google Translate, so Mefites, I turn to you! Details and languages below the jump.

The languages I need help with are:

Arabic (I don't know the potential dialects spoken by either staff or clients)
Cantonese
Standard Chinese (Mandarin)
Tagalog
Korean
Russian
Vietnamese


Thanks in advance, everyone!

posted by JuliaIglesias to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

Best answer: Russian: Я говорю по-русски
posted by danceswithlight at 2:41 PM on February 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I might suggest having the pins say just the name of the language, rather than a whole phrase. That way you can make the text bigger, and you're less likely to run into issues of dialect.
posted by danceswithlight at 3:10 PM on February 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Chinese / Mandarin: 我會説中文 (traditional) alt 我会说普通话 (simplified)

Cantonese: 我識講唐話 alt 我識講廣東話
posted by kschang at 3:12 PM on February 9, 2021

Best answer: Here are a few that are already pins. Even if you don't order from there, you can use their wording.
posted by hydra77 at 3:14 PM on February 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I have a language identification chart that says "I speak X" and then the English name for the language, in each the of the below languages. The content won't copy/paste due to the way Adobe handles the fonts. MeMail me and I can send you the PDF.

Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Armenian
Azeri
Bengali
Bosnian/Croatian
Bulgarian
Burmese
Cantonese
Czech
English
Estonian
Farsi
French
Georgian
German
Gujerati
Hausa
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Ibo
Indonesian
Kazakh
Kinyarwanda
Korean
Kurdish
Latvian
Lingala
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Malay
Mandarin
Marathi
Mongolian
Nepali
Polish
Portuguese
Punjabi
Pushto
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Shona
Sinhalese
Slovak
Somali
Spanish
Swahili
Tagalog
Tamil
Thai
Telugu
Tigrignia
Turkish
Twi
Ukranian
Urdu
Uzbeck
Vietnamese
Yoruba
posted by tiamat at 3:18 PM on February 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

On further messing around some of it will copy/paste.

Marunong ako magsalita ng - Tagalog
posted by tiamat at 3:27 PM on February 9, 2021

Best answer: For Arabic, be aware that many programs will butcher Arabic text in a way that can be difficult to notice if you aren't looking for it — see this site for some examples of this. It's best to get someone who reads Arabic to look over the final output for you, to ensure that it looks right.
posted by wesleyac at 7:40 AM on February 10, 2021

Response by poster: Everyone, thank you so much!

danceswithlight: I completely agree with you about just using the name of the language...but it's not my call. *sigh*

The only one so far that I'm having a hard time getting confirmation for is Korean. Anyone?
posted by JuliaIglesias at 4:38 PM on February 10, 2021

Korean: 한국어 할 수 있어요
posted by danceswithlight at 12:43 PM on February 11, 2021