Quick Czech question

Can any of you translate the following bit of Czech into English – “Zdravím předladatele”?

A visitor to Omniglot has asked for help with this.

Comments (6)

lukasDecember 9th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

Are you sure it’s not “Zdravím překladatele”? That would mean “Hello, translator.”

hannahDecember 9th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

From a friend: “I’m not sure what předladatele means – it might be predkladatel which is translator. If that’s the case, its I greet the translators.”

JanaDecember 9th, 2009 at 3:13 pm

Hello! “Zdravím překladatele” means “I greet the translator”. (“předladatel” does not mean anything)

praseDecember 9th, 2009 at 6:43 pm

All above is correct. Exact translation of course depends on the context. It can be “translator” or “translators” as the number cannot be discerned. The definite article is not necessary, it could be as well “I greet a translator” or “I greet translators”, even if the indefinite version is not much probable.

I would be interested to know in which situation one needs to translate this sentence (and nothing more), if it isn’t a secret.

praseDecember 9th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

One more point: the previous comments had biased me into thinking that “předladatele” is a corrupted form of “překladatele”. However, it can be as well corrupted version of “předkladatele”; maybe more probable to occur, given the positions of D and K on the keyboard.

“Předkladatel” is, according to slovnik.cz, translated as “submitter”. The word is used mainly together with some further specification, as
“předkladatel návrhu” = person who (officialy) submits a proposal
“předkladatel zákona” = petitioner (?) of the act, i.e. a deputy, group of deputies or the government which proposes the bill.

(? – I’m not sure about the English translation)

Petréa MitchellDecember 9th, 2009 at 8:36 pm

prase:

Given your explanation of “předkladatel zákona”, I think “sponsor” is a closer English equivalent.