After reading what I sent to you earlier it sounded a bit harsh, sorry, I do not read Croatian but passed your email onto someone at work who looked at it and I had hoped would change some things but he wrote back: "The translation is a bit weird but the basic intent of the letter should be understood by someone who can only read, write and speak Croatian" Also if you send the English version Im sure that someone (younger in the family) will be able to understand that as well. Good luck in your findings and I hope you get a favourable response. Frank also has letters written in Croatian if you need to send to Churches or Archives. If you need a copy he will forward this to you. BTW was it Trans Translator you are using? I've used this programme for certains words I want to find out but never used it for actual sentences. Mary ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maryanne Lawrie" <m.lawrie@walter.net.au> To: <CROATIA-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 11:21 AM Subject: RE: [CROATIA-L] Proof needed of this contact letter > > The translation is a bit weird but the basic intent of the letter should be > understood by someone who can only read, write and speak Croatian. > > > Mary > > -----Original Message----- > From: Birkholz, James [mailto:James.Birkholz@usa.okmetic.com] > Sent: Friday, 10 May 2002 10:58 AM > To: CROATIA-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [CROATIA-L] Proof needed of this contact letter > > > We are preparing to send letters to Croatians found in the phone book, that > we believe are probably distant relatives. > > We used an online computer translator to generate a Croatian version of the > the English text. > We'll send the letter in both languages, along with a simplified pedigree > chart that includes some photos. > > Below are the two versions. We're hoping that someone can tell us if the > machine translation needs fixing and provide better wording. > > TIA, > James and Tami Birkholz > > > > > ( Hrvatski, Croatian ) > Mi ( [Researcher1] i [Researcher]) ) jesu istrazivanje nas obitelj povijest. > > > Mi pisati ovaj zaglavlje pisma vama jer nadamo se taj ti si povezivati se od > nas. > Karta, sto je ispod, pokazivanje sto mi znati o nas obitelj povijest. > Karta ne pokazivanje svi dana potomstvo od [immigrant ancestor]. > Se Internet povezivanje sa vasim obitelj povijest? > > Mi nemamo vrlo velik dio obavijest, jer bozja djeca [immigrant ancestor] > preterit od be namjesten u sirotiste. > Oni je ne znati njihov predak [immigrant ancestor] vrlo kvalitetno. > > Jer mi ne govoriti Hrvatski, mi pisati in Engleski jezik. > Pa ipak, mi isto tako osigurati prevodenje, oformljen kompjutorski. > Internet htijenje biti los prevodenje, ali bi trebao prenijeti nas osnovni > znacenje. > > Ukoliko to ucinite ne govoriti Engleski jezik, ugoditi odgovoriti in > Hrvatski. > Mi cemo imati netko prevesti tvoj zabrljati u Engleski jezik. > > Ako ste ne zainteresirana za serif tvoj obitelj povijest sa nas, ce te Molim > Vas dajte mi ovaj zaglavlje pisma to netko tko moc? > Nadamo se, pa ipak, taj te htijenje reci nas ako ste povezivati se nama. > I mi isto tako uzdanica taj mozete reci nas o povijest dana (shared family > name). > Mi zelja to povezivanje opet obitelji taj imati ne je kontakt za na 80 > godina. > > ================= > > ( English / Engleski ) > We ( [Researcher1] and [Researcher2] ) are researching our family history. > > We write this letter to you because we hope that you are a relative of ours. > The chart, which is below, shows what we know about our family history. > The chart does not show all of the descendants of [immigrant ancestor]. > Does it connect with your family history? > > We do not have very much information, because the children of [immigrant > ancestor] were placed into an orphanage. > They did not know their father [immigrant ancestor] very well. > > Because we do not speak Croatian, we write in English. > However, we also provide a translation, created by a computer. > It will be a bad translation, but should convey our basic meaning. > > If you do not speak English, please answer in Croatian. > We will have someone translate your message into English. > > If you are not interested in sharing your family history with us, would you > please give this letter to someone who might? > We hope, however, that you will tell us if you are related to us. > And we also hope that you can tell us about the history of the [shared > family name]. > We desire to reconnect the families that have lost contact for over 80 > years. > >