Messages

1

Beginners / Re: Translate expressions

« on: September 22, 2015, 06:49:58 am »

PS : It isn't Hadaen ahhaja/ahhajana/ahhajanaza anna ?

It is, of course. I'm just stoopid and make errors. I originally made a series
Anha nem ahhajak. = I'm made strong.
Anha nem ahhajanak. = I'm made stonger.
Anha nem ahhajanazak. = I'm made the strongest.
but then thought it would be better not to confuse the issue with passive, so I added the food and forgot to change the verb conjugation.

2

Beginners / Re: Translate expressions

« on: September 21, 2015, 01:56:00 am »

Comparative verb forms can be turned into verbs.
Anha hajak. = I'm strong.
Anha ahajanak. = I'm stonger.
Anha ahajanazak. =I'm the strongest.
Hadaen ahhajak anna. = Food makes me strong.
Hadaen ahhajanak anna. = Food makes me stronger.
Hadaen ahhajanazak anna. = Food makes me the strongest.

3

Beginners / Re: Translate expressions

« on: September 19, 2015, 12:13:23 am »

Alrighty. Good one. Not an easy one, though. I'll take a teacherish long-form stance on this.

Both kisha are correctly inflected, but they should both be accusatives, and since nominative and accusative happen so be the same with kisha, I can't really tell if this was intentional.

That is a tricky word to translate even on a good day. Depending on where you find it, it can be translated at least as [pardon silly examples]

• 1a) medial demonstrative modifier: That dress makes you beautiful. -> Haz shor azzheanae yera.
• 1b) distal demonstrative modifier: That lion is the biggest. -> Rek hrakkar azhokwanaza.
• 2a) medial demonstrative pronoun (and all the animacy, cases and plurality that follows): That makes you beautiful. -> Hazi azzheanae yera.
• 2b) distal demonstrative pronoun (and all the animacy, cases and plurality that follows): That is the biggest. -> Reki azhokwanaza.
• 3) conjunctive clitic: I heard that you are strong. -> Anha char meyer haji.
• 4) relative pronoun (and all the animacy, cases and plurality that follows): The jug that you gave me broke. -> Heffof fin azh yer anhaan samvo.

Here that is, I think, something stranger, a part of an alternative four, maybe. That is, if you try to keep close to the original, the that which phrase is perhaps best analysed as an indefinite relative. You can see me trying to puzzle the underlying grammar of DJP's earlier translation Me Reki Driva Laz Vo Drivoo Avvos (That which is dead can never die) in the comments of the linked blog post, and the discussion ends with DJP pretty much just saying "It may need revisiting." You may also pick up, that what David more generally recommends for fairly similar cases is to untangle the English-snappy syntax, and advance through "It makes us stronger, which does not kill us." I think in the end this is the hardest part. Different languages prefer to express ideas with different syntaxes. You can often force a syntax that is very close to the original text, but a good translator develops an ear on what syntaxes are natural in the target language. And that is so hard goal to aspire to with a conlang into which we have only partial reach and a small corpus of text.
[Edit: I may well overthink this by a mile. DJP's translation was actually for "what is dead may never die", which would explain why he wanted to do something fancier than a regular relative clause syntax.]

You have vos on parenthesis. When I translate, I hate dropping vos. I feel I'm just begging for massive confusion. But David does drop vos off on fairly regular basis, so it's definitely a Dothraki thing to do, when appropriate, and I feel here it's particulary fitting.
The confusion is, of course, that Dothraki has a multifunctional -o- suffix derivation pattern. Multifunctionality means that the derivation pattern is fuzzy, but mostly the thing is that for many static verbs, like drivat, there is a sort of dynamic counterpart, like drivolat. So if you say, for example "He is not dead", but try to drop vos, You'd say Me drivo, which could also mean "He died." Dothraki more or less dodges this by dropping the vos at least mostly just when there is no -o- counterpert to cause a confusion. But we don't know all the Dothraki words, so we can't really be sure that there isn't a horrid confusion-brewing sister word. But with causatives we can be at least hopeful. You see, causatives imply change of state in themselves, so they are usually derived from stative, not from the -o- form. You might think that "to cause to die" would be derived from drivolat, but it's actually derived from more primitive word form, drivat. And so we can be hopeful that addrivat has no sister word addrivolat, because addrivat pretty much means what addrivolat logically would.

Now you already might guess the next correction. "To cause to be stronger" is a different word from "to be strong". We don't list such a word, but the derivation patterns for both causatives and comparatives are stable and active, so you can try to create the word and be comfortable that the word is real if you created it right: ahhajanat would be my try.

So these would be my probably-more-correct versions:
Me fini addrivo kisha ahhajana kisha. (with a regular relative clause)
Me reki addrivo kisha ahhajana kisha. (copying David's indefinite-relative-clause-esque syntax)
Me ahhajana kisha reki addrivo kisha. (flipping the syntax for hopefully less tangled feel)

Some relevant wiki pages:
causative http://wiki.dothraki.org/Types_of_verbs#Dynamic_Verbs (though should really be included in wiki.dothraki.org/Derivational_morphology)
comparative http://wiki.dothraki.org/Adjectives
relative and demostrative pronouns http://wiki.dothraki.org/Pronouns (See also http://www.dothraki.com/2012/02/demonstratives/)
complex sentences http://wiki.dothraki.org/Syntax

4

Beginners / Re: Possession Dothraki

« on: September 18, 2015, 04:52:17 pm »

At least I know how to use haji now

At least you know how to use haji with foreign words. With native words, haji is followed by ablative and has a sort of vague/abstract because of, on account of sense.

5

Beginners / Re: Possession Dothraki

« on: September 18, 2015, 06:44:04 am »

So, it would be incorrect to inflect a foreign word then, e.g. Johnoon?

That's what I hear. Dunno, how definitely wrong it is, but basically incorrect, yes.

6

Beginners / Re: Possession Dothraki

« on: September 17, 2015, 03:57:55 pm »

Actually, while Dothraki doesn't, some languages just put everything through their inflection pattern. In my native language, Finnish, any foreign noun, name or what ever, is inflected (when not in nominative), otherwise they can't really be used (when a case other than nominative is needed). It can be awkward, when the phonemes or intonation are different, and in some rare occurences, our intuition on how to inflect unfamiliar words may even falther, but we do it anyway.

In Dothraki, native names like any other native words can be inflected, so "Then head of Drogo" should be nhare Drogosoon, if I'm not entirely mistaken. AFAIK all human names should be animate. I'm not sure, how animacy of names would go for, say cities or countries, all animate I'd guess.

With un-assimilated foreign words like foreign names, Dothraki uses a specific method to exclude them from the inflectional (as well as prepositional) syntax. When any other case than nominative is needed, they put haji in front of the word and then just don't inflect. And you need to get from the context, in what sense the foreign name is used.

The head of John is thick. -> Nhare haji John nroja.
The clothes of John are thick. -> Khogar haji John nroja.

The head of Drogo is thick. -> Nhare Drogosoon nroja.
The clothes of Drogo are thick. -> Khogar Drogosi nroja.

7

Beginners / Re: Prevalence of -agon in Verb Endings

« on: September 16, 2015, 09:40:56 pm »

I'm still an outsider when it comes to Valyrian, but this I can answer.
In English you usually have a rather definite "word as is" and then you can inflect it by adding suffixes. For example, you have walk, and you can inflect it walked or walks or walking. Sometimes there's something happening at the boundary between the suffix and the main body of the word, but that's small stuff. In languages that are heavier into inflections, things are not necessarily as crisp. There may not be any definite "word as is". You always use an appropriate suffix, and the suffixless body of the word (stem) isn't necessarily even pronouncable - it might end in a big consonant cluster that needs to be followed by a vowel. In these kind of languages a dictionary builder has to choose either to offer bare stems, which are not words as they are ever used, or to choose some inflection. For many languages, infinitive is the best choice for verbs. It's not the most used verb form in practice, and it's not necessarily the simplest, but it tends to have two really cool characteristics:
1) Infinitive often stands apart. There can be a huge number of verb conjugations in tense and person and whatever, but infinitive is often just one form of the word.
2) Infinite is the verb form that is used when the verb is not further defined by sentence (pretty much when it's not predicate). However oddly inflected the verb is, in infinitive it's still in sense "the word as is".

So: -agon is the suffix for valyrian infinitive verb form.

8

Beginners / Re: Can you guys check if we're doing it right?

« on: September 16, 2015, 08:48:52 pm »

First of all, I'm not always as sharp as you might hope, and when I concentrate on one possible bump in translation, other one will often slip past. While I eventually commented on the alienability issue, and specifically mentioned that interpersonal relationships should be treated alienable, I did not correct them all.

"My son" is of course rizh anni, not rizh anhoon
Nothing strange here, justy a little miss.

But this is a stranger fumble of mine:
"sister of his wife" is inavva chiorikemi mae just as I translated it, so
Me asto inavvaes chiorikemi mae. does indeed mean (as far as I know) "He spoke to the sister of his wife."
However, Dothraki is pretty good at ending with sentences which can be interpeted in multiple ways - you might say it's often fairly lossy. Somehow I got confused somewhere along the way to the corrected translation. I actually thought I was translating "He spoke to the sister about his wife." The translation just happened to be exactly same. That is why I'm mumbling about verb classes there (more about verb classes below).

I figured that "riszh" is the direct object of the transitive negative verb of "fatilat" and conjugated accordingly. Sorry, I'm not quite following your distinction between "to try to insult" vs. "to insult." How does the syntax create these distinct meanings?

[just a small heads-up: AFAIK conjugate is an English word specifically reserved for inflecting verbs. Not that my grammar vocabulary is any more sharp, I am neither native English speaker nor linguist]
The case for a direct object is accusative. For rizh singular accusative is rizhes.

Now, the whole thing about "trying to insult". In Dothraki prepositions are very much just an extension of the small case system, and bare cases are favored. So when you want to create an indirect object, often you don't use any preposition, but just use allative, ablative or genitive case instead of accusative. For many verbs the use of cases is not entirely intuitive, but is dictated by convention and just has to be known. This is basically same as in English, where a lot of verbs are used with different prepositions, the fixed conventions are just much more with bare cases. So while Vos fato rizhes anni. is a perfectly good sentence, meaning "Don't insult my son", Dothraki has an option that English does not really have, to say instead something roughly like "Don't insult at my son", and that would be Vos fato rizhaan anni.
See: http://wiki.dothraki.org/Verb_Classes and, even better, http://conlang.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/djplcc4.pdf

Thanks for the link to DJP's blog! Useful stuff. I should go over his blog, as the book is a bit pithy with its explanations

Humm? You weren't aware of the blog? OK.

Let's make sure you know the essential sources:

Apart from the Living Language book, this aforementioned http://www.dothraki.com/ is the best authoritative source of information. It's about what ever David has felt like writing about, so it's a fragmented collection. I have made this http://wiki.dothraki.org/A_List_of_David_Peterson's_Blog_Posts list mostly so that I myself could more easily recheck stuff from there, but if it helps finding relevant information, be my guest and use it, even update it - it's in the wiki.

The most comprehensive, wide-reaching source is the wiki's grammar hub http://wiki.dothraki.org/Learning_Dothraki. It's collected by learners, so information is always a bit suspect, and since a lot of it is my writing, it isn't too well written either. It's also a place where you can easily participate, signing in and improving the content.

Some less essential stuff:

David is active at tumbl and has posted there a lot of little things: http://dedalvs.tumblr.com/tagged/Dothraki

Apart from the series dialogue http://wiki.dothraki.org/Season_One_Dothraki_Dialogue and http://wiki.dothraki.org/Season_Two_Dothraki_Dialogue and the dialogue examples is the Living Language book, I find LCC relay texts http://dedalvs.com/relay/previous/lcc4results/1.html, http://dedalvs.com/relay/previous/lcc4results/17.html, http://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/1-dothraki-initial-text/ and http://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/13-dothraki-final-text/ very lookworthy text examples.

9

Beginners / Re: can you translate?

« on: September 16, 2015, 07:07:00 pm »

Whee! I get to say JFGI. I know it'sn a bit rude, but this is such a rare occasion. It's very unusual that googling "X in Dothraki" actually gives you an authoritative translation for X, but in this case it does.

10

Beginners / Re: Can you guys check if we're doing it right?

« on: September 10, 2015, 01:51:17 pm »

Mori tihish hrazef khaleesisi
I saw the queen's horse

I'm guessing the error is really on the English translation, because this correct Dothraki for "They saw the queen's horse."

Anha adothrak vaesoon asshilokh
I will ride to the city tomorrow

Vaesoon is "from the city", vaesaan would be "to the city". Where is asshilokh from? To my knowledge, asshekh is "today" and silokh "tomorrow". A lot of time adverbs (like time adverbs from demonstratives) have been formed by adding /a-/ and geminating the first consonant of some word or another, but as far as I know, this is etymology stuff, not an active derivation pattern. And, anyway, I would not expect s to soften to sh in gemination.

Kisha dothrash najahheyaan oskikh!
We rode to victory yesterday!

Victory is not a place and riding to victory is a figure of speech, which means that this probably works, but might not - at least as long as you can't show DJP using this exact phrase somewhere.
This is always the case with idiomatic stuff. We can't avoid using figurative speech altogether and can't find a canonical example for everything we want to say, so we often have to fly by the seat of our pants. It's just good to be aware when you move from fairly stable literal footing to more wobbly figurative area. Even the most intuitive feeling metaphors are sometimes different in different cultures, like some might say "Looking back, I should have studied harder," and in another language people might express the same idea with "Looking forward, I should have studied harder," because we are not in universal agreement about in which direction is the past and which the future.

Vos fato rizhaan anhoon!
Do not insult my son!

I'd say just Vos fato rizhes anhoon. Fatilat + allative is interpreted as per the irresultative class. If you use allative, it changes the meaning only slightly, implying that there was at least an attempt at inslut, but it did not necessarily stick, or hit the mark. So it's sort of half-way to "Do not try to insult my son." I might translate Vos fato rizhaan anhoon! as "Do not throw insluts at my son!"

Anha vindek laquikhes tihoon moon
I will drink the tears from his eyes

"Tear" is laqikh; there is no u. It's also inanimate, so accusative is just laqikh. Tih, on the other hand is animate, so it has a plural, so it should be tihoe.

Zhor yeron mra quora ma anha vadakhak mae
I have your heart, and I will eat it

Yeroon and qora. If the next word after ma starts with a vowel, ma is pretty much always elided into m', so this wouls be better m'anha. I just lamented on the other thread, how this is confusable with me- clitic, which is also elided to m'." 

Me asto inavvaes chiorisaan moon
He spoke to the sister of his wife.

Topic class uses genitive, and chiori is alienable, so chiorisi mae. But chiori also should AFAIK mean "woman", not "wife", so to make the English version accurate, Dothraki should be Me asto inavvaes chiorikemi mae.

Having throuble with the inalienable possession concept. For example, "her sister" is inalienable because she will always be her sister, sek? But a man's wife can be taken from him? At least that's kind of what we reasoned about during our discussion.

The way Dothraki language handles inalienable is very narrow. DJP has said it's mostly body parts. Yes, it would make sense to regard one's sister inalienable, but I'm fairly sure Dothraki regards it alienable. Have you read http://www.dothraki.com/2012/11/possession/? In it DJP even mentions

In Dothraki, the genitive case is the default expression of alienable possession. It’s used for most types of garden variety possession, including interpersonal relationships

11

Beginners / Re: Radio Station looking for Dothraki speakers

« on: September 08, 2015, 03:55:49 pm »

And before you get to answer again, the final part of my correction/suggestion run:

When I'm lonely yes I know I'm gonna be
Arrek anha khezhak, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha

yep

I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin khezhae oma yeroon

Khezhat is consonant-ending, so it's khezha in third person.

When I'm dreaming yes I know I'm gonna dream
Arrek anha thirak atthiraride, sek, (anha) nesak anha (thirak) atthiraride

Since the latter part is "I'm gonna dream," not "I'm dreaming," I'd use future, athirak.
I don't really think you can drop the (a)thirat. That's the verb of the sentence, and dropping the verb is usually kinda huge change, and Dothraki doing the zero-copula thing can make it even huger. Without the verb you are pretty much saying "When I live a false-life, I know I am a false-life". The dreamer becomes the dream.
Now, What I'd suggest is a trick lyrical text translators use a lot. When the original has repetition and the target language has a lot longer thing to say, break the expression between the original's repetition: "When I'm dreaming I know I'm gonna dream // Dream about the time when I'm with you" -> "When I live a false-life I know I'm gonna live // a false-life about the time when I'm with you."

Dream about the time when I'm with you
(Thirak) atthiraride qisi kashi arrek anha ma yeroon

yep

When I go out well I know I'm gonna be
Arrek anha dothrak, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha

yep

I'm gonna be the man who's going out with you
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin dothrae yeri

yep

When I go home well I know I'm gonna be
Arrek anha jadak okraan, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha

yep

I'm gonna be the man who's comin'in home to you
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin vessae okraan yeraan

I don't really get the future in essalat. I mean, why not; it's not changing anything essential. However, "is coming" is most definitely present tense, though of course in that ...continuos ...or progressive (-ing) aspect? Admittedly, it is nasty that the second and third verse have these almost identical lines:
When I come home yeah I know I'm gonna be // I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
When I go home well I know I'm gonna be // I'm gonna be the man who's comin'in home to you
And it would be cool to maintain the difference. Now the translations of the first halves are identical and the second differ in this odd (albeit entirely harmless) small way.
Well, one small thing is the move from "yeah" to "well". We don't know many interjections, but I think gwe might be a passable enough approximation of "well". The other difference is the move from "come" -> "come back" to "go" -> "come". We could use elat for "go", jadat for "come" and essalat for "come back". This way we'd have:
Arrek anha jadak okraan, sek, anha nesak m'ek anha // Ek anha mahrazhaan fin essae okraan yeraan
Arrek anha ek okraan, gwe, anha nesak m'ek anha // Ek anha mahrazhaan fin jada okraan yeraan

All my current versions together:

Arrek anha yathok, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin yathoe qisi yer
Arrek anha dothrak, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin dothrae yeri
Hash anha zhikhak, sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin zhikha qisi yer
Ma hash anha astok (k'athgizikhvenari), sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin astoe yeraan (k'athgizikhvenari)

Vosma anha laz vifak mekken karlin
Ma anha laz vifak mekken alikh
M'anha mahrazh fin if dalen karlin disse
arthasat she rhaesea yeroon

Arrek anha tak thikh, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin ta thikh haji yeroon chek
Ma arrek vizhadi jadoe haji thikhoon fin atak anha
Anha azhak yeraan san vizhadi
Arrek anha jadak okraan, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin essae okraan yeraan
Ma hash anha vitisherak athfozaraan, sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin vitishera athfozaraan ma yeroon

Arrek anha khezhak, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin khezha oma yeroon
Arrek anha thirak atthiraride, sek, (anha) nesak anha athirak
Atthiraride qisi kashi arrek anha ma yeroon
Arrek anha dothrak, gwe, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin dothrae yeri
Arrek anha ek okraan, gwe, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin jada okraan yeraan

---

Dothras chek!

12

Beginners / Re: Radio Station looking for Dothraki speakers

« on: September 07, 2015, 02:51:23 pm »

One thing we both missed though, is atak needs to be in the genetive case, which effectively renders it an adjective.

No, I think this is a bit deeper misunderstanding. The way I handled atak it's a verb, namely first person future singular of tat. It's a direct translation of will do.
Maybe this will clarify (or confuse):

We were translating
the work I'll do
I identified a reduced relative clause, and since Dothraki does not do them reduced (at least not like English does), I basically went to tranlate an expanded version:
the work which I will do
Now, Dothraki relative clauses are a well understood but dodgy thing. If I wanted to say "I'll do it," I'd say
Anha atak mae.
But relative clauses use the old VSO word order. In this old word order (which you kinda can use anywhere, but must use on relative clauses) "I'll do it" is
Atak anha mae.
Of course in relative clause you need the relative pronoun, in English which instead of it and in Dothraki fin instead on mae. Note that fin is the accusative case of fini, because it's still the object of the sentence. Both in English and Dothraki relative clause follows the noun it modifies, and the relative pronoun is fronted and inherits the animacy of the noun it's modifying:
the work which I will do -> tikh fin atak anha.
This is the dodginess of relative clauses. Compare to a line we had earlier:
Ek anha mahrazhaan fin dothrae yeri
Here we have a relative clause in the deceptively familiar-from-English standard Dothraki word order SVO, but actually it's VSO with the relative pronoun fronted. It also seems like we are using the same relative pronoun (both have seemingly exactly the same fin), but actually because mahrazh is animate, so is the relative noun. Animate singular relative pronoun fin would be fines in accusative case. Inanimate relative pronoun fini is fin only in accusative case.

I'm not completely sure I understand what you are talking about when using me to translate infinites. You might want to explain that a bit further.

OK. I've done some more thinking and self-critique (since critique is otherwise sparce). uhh.
First, let's say, for the sake of brevity, that we're translating
I walk 500 miles to be the man who walked 500 miles to fall at your feet
I think that has all the parts we are really interested in.

Basically, I was unsure, how to deal with infinites and especially how to deal with "to be the man" part. When you have trouble translating some clever and snappy English syntax structure, one of the first questions is, can you open the syntax up into more ponderous, less clever syntax. I remembered the dialogue line
Khaleesi zala meme adakha esinakh ajjalan - The khaleesi wants to eat something different tonight.
A literal translation would be "The khaleesi wants that she eats something different tonight." I thought this was a good and authoritative road map for our translation. I'd use the clitic me-, which is Dothraki that in the conjunctive sense. I'd effectively translate
I walk 500 miles (so) that I am the man who walked 500 miles (so) that I fall at your feet into
Anha ifak mekken karlin m'anha mahrazh fin if mekken karlin m'anha arthasak she rhaesea yeroon.
Grammatically this was, I think, solid-ish option, though aesthetically it is a bit on the messy side, me and ma being so confusable. I should not have been, however, been so apprehensive about using Dothraki infinites. Digging to my memories, I think the reason for the use of me- in my dialogue bit was actually that zalat is a word with a wide meaning range, and that dictated the need for a heavier syntax.
We have infinite verb sentences as objects very briefly discussed at our wiki's syntax page under "small clauses". It's my own writing, so it's not super dependable, and I have yet to dig a good David-created example (best I came up quick was Chari anna zorat!). I think we can posit that infinites should not be inflected as nouns in these kind of situations (ie. should not be put in accusative) and are generally doing nothing weird. So we could easily go back to
I walk 500 miles (so) that I am the man who walked 500 miles to fall at your feet into
Anha ifak mekken karlin m'anha mahrazh fin if mekken karlin arthasat she rhaesea yeroon.
But do we get anywhere further? A part of the reason to flee from infinites to comfort of me- conjunctives was the problematic to be syntax. I don't see any easy way to translate that better.

13

Beginners / Re: Radio Station looking for Dothraki speakers

« on: September 06, 2015, 04:01:26 pm »

Alrighty. Trying to move on, chorus and the second verse. Hopefully I still have my head on my shoulders.

But I would walk 500 miles
Vosma Anha laz ifak mekken karlina

Yep, I don't think we know how to do "would" exactly. Laz is a pretty good approximation, ish being another possibility. I'd use future tense, however. The English version is kinda sorta future too, innit.
Karlina is the object of the sentence and thus should be in accusative. I mean, it could be in some other case or with a preposition, since I don't really know how Dothraki would handle doing ...quantities? but it should not be in bare nominative.
It's possible that ma anha and vosma anha would be more grammatically m'anha and vosm'anha, but even if that's the case, I'm sure you can go with the full ma and vosma in a song (if you don't need to cut syllables), and I feel here the not elided versions are better. If you go with my later suggestion to use me- prefixes (to tranlate infinites), which can't be un-elided (you can't say meanha, you must say m'anha), I feel full versions here make things a lot less messy. Though the whole mess would suggest my me- prefixation idea might not be the best.

And I would walk 500 more
Ma Anha laz ifak mekken alikh

Yep.

Just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles
Disse vekhak mahrazh haz if dalen karlina

You can front disse, but its natural place is at the end of the sentence.
But yeah, this is the challenge point of the translation. Frankly, I'm not even sure, if vekhat is that bad idea here. I would not use it, but something like Anni vekhak ven mahrazh fin if dalen karlin ("I am present as a man who walked thousand miles") might IMO be a decent path.
The another big question is how do you replicate the infinite-verb-as-an-object sentence structure of English. Dothraki has infinite verb forms, and we even know they can be inflected like animate nouns. But my bet is that Dothraki would do this again with a little bit heavier structure, comparing to how Khaleesi zala meme adakha esinakh ajjalan was transated to Dothraki from "The khaleesi wants to eat something different tonight."
I think I'd go with M'anha mahrazh fin if dalen karlin disse.

To fall down at your door
arthasak (zohhe) she yeri rahe

I don't think translating down is a good idea. "To fall down" is an english expression and translating it to just arthasat seems much stronger choice.
I'm guessing "rahe" is misspelled rhae, because I can't find the word, and rhae would make a lot sense. She gets the "onto" sense with allative, so rhae should be in that case, and also in plural, since it's an animate noun (says The Book - our vocab page was not up to date as of writing this): rhaesea.
Possessive comes after the noun and rhae is inalienable, so she rhaesea yeroon.
Going with the same translation scheme for the infinite, we get m'anha arthasak she rhaesea yeroon.

When I'm working yes I know I'm gonna be
Arrek anha tak thikh, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha

yep

I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin tak thikh chek (ha) yeraan

Still needs to be in third person: ta.
I'm not sure about the placement of chek, but I think it's best positioned as sentence final, being adverb and all.
Ha yeraan and bare yeraan are both good, but for the sake of suggesting stuff, I'll suggest haji yeroon. That's more abstract "because of" sort of relation that I feel jams well for the "on behalf of" or "in favor of" ...ish sense of "for".

And when the money comes in for the work I'll do
Ma arrek vizhadi ha thikhaan anha atak

I think we can fit a verb here. Jadolat seems good.
Here I feel you really should use haji. If ha works, it does so probably in ablative as "from".
We have also another reduced clause, relative this time, so all together I'd go with Ma arrek vizhadi jadoe haji thikhoon fin atak anha.

I'll pass almost every penny on to you
Anha azhak yeraan chir ei (vizhad)

We don't know enough to be sure, but from what we know, chir should not work. It's one of those verbal auxiliary thingies and so should not mean "almost" in the sense needed here. Maybe we could go with san instead of chir ei? It's not the same, but not too far off, IMO. Vizhadi goes to genitive then, and I would not deem it dropable.

When I come home yeah I know I'm gonna be
Arrek anha jadak okraan, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha

yep

I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin essae okraan yeraan

I think this is good too.

And if I grow old well I know I'm gonna be
Ma hash anha vitisherak foz, sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha

Adjective as an object should not wash. We chould make it into "oldness", athfozar, and put it into allative, I think.

I'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin vitisherae foz ma yeroon

Vitisherat is consonant-ending, so it's vitishera in third person.

Vosma anha laz vifak mekken karlin
Ma anha laz vifak mekken alikh
M'anha mahrazh fin if dalen karlin disse
M'anha arthasak she rhaesea yeroon

Arrek anha tak thikh, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin ta thikh haji yeroon chek
Ma arrek vizhadi jadoe haji thikhoon fin atak anha
Anha azhak yeraan san vizhadi
Arrek anha jadak okraan, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin essae okraan yeraan
Ma hash anha vitisherak athfozaraan, sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin vitishera athfozaraan ma yeroon

14

Beginners / Re: Dothraki Conjugeur - v0.0.4 - Alizia (Beta)

« on: August 27, 2015, 06:22:13 am »

How can I list these verbs exceptions ? Dothraki dictionary don't list for exemple "sil/-at" :x

The pdf dictionary has its advantages, but vocabulary page is usually the more up-to-date source (whenever one is lacking), because any one of us (you included) can add words if they notice a word is missing. And the vocabulary page also has more extra information. Lat-ending verbs, for example, should have their past singular under the word, so that you know what the stem is.

15

Beginners / Re: Radio Station looking for Dothraki speakers

« on: August 27, 2015, 06:10:29 am »

Geez. A radio show thing too. A lot of stuff going on all of sudden. Good luck, Hrakkar. I hope it'll be fun. But it isn't even the first time you are in the public eye/ear as a Dothraki learner, so I'm guessing you'll do fine.

But I'm the resident grammarian, so I'll do what I do. This is a lengthy text, so I'll start at the beginning and we'll see if I get through before the show is done (it's not done yet, is it?).

The Proclaimers - I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)
Anha Avekhak (Mekken Karlina)

Unlike any other known verb in Dothraki, vekhat sets the subject in a non-nominative case, namely into genitive. So this should be Anni Avekhak.
Like every other known verb in Dothraki, vekhat does not really work well here, though. Zero-copula sentences are the most prominent exotic feature of Dothraki, and sentences like "I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you" do very much require a zero-copula translation (or something not direct, of course). The usual way to say "I'm gonna be the man" is Anha mahrazhaan, but for clarity or emphasis you can add a fronted verb elat: Ek anha mahrazhaan. This gives one possible option for translating "I'm gonna be" at least somewhat closely as Ek Anha (literally "Go I").
Vekhat is "to be" in an existence sense. Anni avekhak to me sounds like "I'll be there/here/present". Would be kinda fitting for Friends theme song, but I'm not sure, how well it fits here.

When I wake up yeah I know I'm gonna be
Arrek Anha yathok sek (Anha) nesak Anha avekhak

Using arrek seems odd, since we have ahhaz for close future stuff and I would think this is about the close future, the very next time you'll wake up, not just some indeterminate future time you'll wake up. But then again, maybe this really is more generally about any time you wake up ("whenever I wake up"), and maybe arrek is actually much better choice. OK. You convinced me.
I don't really know, if yathok should be in future tense. I kinda think it might need to be. Or the present tense might be additional commitment to the general tone interpretation of the sentence.
Dothraki doesn't do reduced clauses (AFAIK), so while in English you don't need to say "I know that I'm gonna be", in Dothraki you must. This does not, however, require extra syllables here: Anha nesak m'anha avekhak. If we go with my elat proposition, we get Anha nesak m'ek anha, I think.

I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
Anha avekhak mahrazh haz yathok qisi yeraan

"who wakes up next to you" is a normal relative clause, so a relative pronoun is needed, not a demonstrative. And the verb should be in third person, just as it is in English. Prepositions set the case of the word they modify. You need to know - or rather check - the right case, so there's no need to puzzle about them, and yeraan is definitely in a wrong case. With my proposed corrections we have more or less:
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin yathoe qisi yer.

When I go out yeah I know I'm gonna be
Arrek Anha dothrak sek (Anha) nesak Anha avekhak

Yep. Nothing new to comment, really. The use of Dothralat is certainly a bit of departure from the original, but seems OK to me.

I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
Anha avekhak mahrazh haz dothrak yeri

Nice use of next to verb class.

If I get drunk yes I know I'm gonna be
Hash Anha zhikhak sek (Anha) nesak Anha avekhak

Hash when used to facilitate if...then structure should be paired: Hash anha zhikhak hash (anha) nesak ...

I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you
Anha avekhak mahrazh haz zhikh qisi yeraan

Zhikh is without any suffix. Is it really meant to be "who was sick next to you"?

And if I have yeah I know I'm gonna be
Ma hash Anha astok (k'athgizikhvenari) sek (Anha) nesak Anha avekhak

no news

I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you
Anha avekhak mahrazh haz astok (k'athgizikhvenari) yeraan

K'athgizikhvenari belongs to the adverb place at the end of the sentence, after yer. Though I guess this might be misplaced with poetic freedom so that the pattern of ending with yer would hold.

Thus so far my conservative corrections would yield something like:
Arrek anha yathok, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin yathoe qisi yer
Arrek anha dothrak, sek, (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin dothrae yeri
Hash anha zhikhak, sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin zhikha qisi yer
Ma hash anha astok (k'athgizikhvenari), sek, hash (anha) nesak m'ek anha
(Ek) anha mahrazhaan fin astoe yeraan (k'athgizikhvenari)