Magam hamraie ina adam metana iak khana goor kena

English translation: With these [bombs and tanks], one can bury a house.

13:07 Jun 29, 2011

Dari to English translations [Non-PRO]
General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters

Dari term or phrase: Magam hamraie ina adam metana iak khana goor kena

This is a voiceover trailer for a film about a family in Afghanistan that seem to lead a fairly nomadic life. I don't speak any Dari - the translation has been provided and I'm checking the English is OK for use as subtitles, but this sentence doesn't make any sense to me and doesn't seem to follow on from the previous two. The person later talks about finding bullets and rockets, which are valuable (presumably can be sold). The next sentence changes the subject altogether so isn't relevant.

Ma echwakht askara na dideem. Yak ruz az inja raftan wa kule tanka wa bamb ho e shana ela kadan. **Magam hamraie ina adam metana iak khana goor kena.**

Translation provided:
I've never seen the soldiers.
One day they went back home
and forgot all their tanks and bombs.
**But they fit nicely together.**

Can anyone enlighten me?

MoiraB KudoZ activity Questions: 725 (none open) (1 without valid answers) (21 closed without grading) Answers: 545 France
Local time: 20:09

English translation:With these [bombs and tanks], one can bury a house.

Explanation:

Selected response from:

Amanollah Zawari
United States
Local time: 11:09

Grading comment

Thanks. Demolish seems logical.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

5 +1

With these [bombs and tanks], one can bury a house.

Amanollah Zawari

I can say (by the way), one can buy a house with these...

Reza Ebrahimi

But one could built a house with these.

Ekhlas

Discussion entries: 8

MoiraB

France

ASKER

08:37 Aug 12, 2011

With no knowledge of the language (as I said), I could only copy the text I was given! ;-)

Reza Ebrahimi

United States

07:52 Aug 12, 2011

in that case you should have written "joor" and not "goor" as they are very different.

MoiraB

France

ASKER

Change of mind = build

07:32 Aug 12, 2011

I had switched off Kudoz notifications while I was on holiday so have only just seen Solarice's answer. Long time ago now (!) but I remember the end client subsequently (post-grading) insisted that 'build' was meant so that's what I used in the revised English version submitted. Can't change the points allocation but kudos to Solarice! Who would have thought it would be such a tricky question!

MoiraB

France

ASKER

Desperate times

13:56 Jun 29, 2011

call for desperate measures, so who knows what people use to build houses ;-)) However, the demolish idea is making more sense now. Asef presumably got hurt while he was doing it. So both of the translations provided with the original got it wrong!

Reza Ebrahimi

United States

13:47 Jun 29, 2011

yes the reason I used buy was that I though the person talks about the value of the ammunition and apparently the next sentence you posted helps to find out the real meaning

Amanollah Zawari

United States

13:43 Jun 29, 2011

"Goor" means "to bury" and also "to demolish" as Reza said. However, it doesn't mean "to build" at all and it doesn't make any sense to build a house with bombs! So I believe that it means that the bombs are too destructive that can demolish a house.

Reza Ebrahimi

United States

13:34 Jun 29, 2011

yes goor means to demolish or ground to the level and joor means to arrange for, buy

MoiraB

France

ASKER

Next sentence

13:31 Jun 29, 2011

Now that I'm getting a better idea what it means, the next sentence does become relevant: Tana Asef akherinbar khub etyat na kada bud (translated as "last time, Asef was not careful enough"). If he means "build" a house (see my note to Amanollah), then presumably there was an accident and Asef got hurt

Answers

12 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

With these [bombs and tanks], one can bury a house.

Explanation:

Amanollah Zawari
United States
Local time: 11:09
Works in field
Native speaker of:

Dari,

Persian (Farsi)

Grading comment

Thanks. Demolish seems logical.

Notes to answerer

Asker: I completely failed to notice that there was another language version of this text underneath the English, but that translates as "you can ***build** a house with them". Is that what you mean? Quite a crucial difference!

19 mins confidence:

I can say (by the way), one can buy a house with these...

Explanation:
if it is "joor" it means to arrange for buying a house which I thin it is the case. goor also means to level to the ground or explode which I dont think he means it here. We dont have a standard for transliteration and some use G instead of J.

Reza Ebrahimi
United States
Local time: 11:09
Works in field
Native speaker of:

Persian (Farsi)

8 days confidence:

But one could built a house with these.

Explanation:
In local dari language (in villages) would not pronouce the words as they are written. The following are translations of words used in the above statement.
Magam (but)
Hamraie (with)
Ina (it should be Eenha) means (these) refering to bullet shells etc
metana (could...suggesting possibility)
Iak (one or a)
Khana (house)
Goor kuna (to bury) however, this should be Joor which means (to build)
My thinking from what is provided above and the context, the person is talking about the possibility of using those bullet shells to build a house.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 8 days (2011-07-07 14:45:36 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

also, the part about forgetting their tanks should actaully be leaving their tanks behind.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 43 days (2011-08-11 22:56:26 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

The word "buy" is not at all relevant in this and does not have anything to do with "joor" or "goor". The word "joor/goor" if the sound "j" for "jar" is used, it is straight forward and means "to build". Hence, the following makes quite a logical sense as well.

I've never seen the soldiers.
One day they went back home
and left their all tanks and bombs. However, one (a person) could build a house with these.

Ekhlas
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:09
Works in field
Native speaker of:

Pashto (Pushto),

Dari
PRO pts in category: 16

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