French recipe for removing green stains on deck

[Poignard]

I found this advice on a French website:

'Pour enlever les traces vertes et les petits points noirs sur le pont : pulvériser du produit anti mousse pour toitures, attendre 4 h et rincer ou laisser faire la pluie. Efficace et écologique: ce produit ne pollue pas..

Which Google translates as:

'To remove green stains and small black dots on deck: spray anti-foam roofing material, wait 4 hours and rinse or allow to rain. Efficient and ecological: this product does not pollute.'


Can anyone suggest a better translation of produit anti mousse pour toitures than Google Translate's offering?

 

[thalassa]

'Anti-moss for roofs'
Usually alkyl dimethyl benzylammonium chloride, as probably in Patio Magic.

 

[Hydrozoan]

'Anti-moss for roofs'
Usually alkyl dimethyl benzylammonium chloride, as probably in Patio Magic.

Seems right, but I do like Google Translate's instruction '... or allow to rain'.

 

[alant]

I found this advice on a French website:

'Pour enlever les traces vertes et les petits points noirs sur le pont : pulvériser du produit anti mousse pour toitures, attendre 4 h et rincer ou laisser faire la pluie. Efficace et écologique: ce produit ne pollue pas..

Which Google translates as:

'To remove green stains and small black dots on deck: spray anti-foam roofing material, wait 4 hours and rinse or allow to rain. Efficient and ecological: this product does not pollute.'


Can anyone suggest a better translation of produit anti mousse pour toitures than Google Translate's offering?

Some years ago, dishwasher powder did the trick.

 

[thalassa]

Try DeepL translator, but paste in the whole paragraph, it knows about context.

 

[Poignard]

Thanks for the help and advice.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Seems right, but I do like Google Translate's instruction '... or allow to rain'.

Yes, I'd quite like to withdraw permission to rain sometimes!

I use Google Translate quite a lot to see what my relatives in Hong Kong are saying. The translations from Traditional Chinese script are often baffling or surreal, and occasionally hilarious! But Chinese is particularly difficult because it is a very allusive language.

 

[[70521]]

Nothing a good brush does not clear.

 

[Hydrozoan]

Yes, I'd quite like to withdraw permission to rain sometimes!

I use Google Translate quite a lot to see what my relatives in Hong Kong are saying. The translations from Traditional Chinese script are often baffling or surreal, and occasionally hilarious! But Chinese is particularly difficult because it is a very allusive language.

Mrs H was a professional translator and was sceptical that computing could do the job – but whilst I have been proved right that increased power would greatly improve its performance, it can still produce some great howlers with even the simpler languages.

 

[johnalison]

Mrs H was a professional translator and was sceptical that computing could do the job – but whilst I have been proved right that increased power would greatly improve its performance, it can still produce some great howlers with even the simpler languages.

Still almost on topic, since it relates to France, I expect that your wife saw the other day that the sister of Martin Bell died. She was apparently the doyenne of translators and her translations of Asterix the Gaul are legendary.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Mrs H was a professional translator and was sceptical that computing could do the job – but whilst I have been proved right that increased power would greatly improve its performance, it can still produce some great howlers with even the simpler languages.

I earn my marina fees by editing academic documents (papers, proposals, theses) written by people whose first language is not English; mainly speakers of Chinese languages (there are several - Chinese isn't a single language). Often the original is grammatically correct, but just not the way a native English speaker would put it! They also confuse colloquial and formal usages; again, Chinese doesn't have that distinction to the extent that written English does.

 

[Hydrozoan]

Still almost on topic, since it relates to France, I expect that your wife saw the other day that the sister of Martin Bell died. She was apparently the doyenne of translators and her translations of Asterix the Gaul are legendary.

Thanks, I’ll pass it on to her.

 

[VicS]

I found this advice on a French website:

'Pour enlever les traces vertes et les petits points noirs sur le pont : pulvériser du produit anti mousse pour toitures, attendre 4 h et rincer ou laisser faire la pluie. Efficace et écologique: ce produit ne pollue pas..

Which Google translates as:

'To remove green stains and small black dots on deck: spray anti-foam roofing material, wait 4 hours and rinse or allow to rain. Efficient and ecological: this product does not pollute.'


Can anyone suggest a better translation of produit anti mousse pour toitures than Google Translate's offering?

'Anti-moss for roofs'
Usually alkyl dimethyl benzylammonium chloride, as probably in Patio Magic.

Very probably the product to which #1 refers does not contain alkyl dimethyl benzylammonium chloride because it not is approved in European, and HSE, regulations as a moss killer. It will kill moss quite effectively but moss comes under different regulations to mould and algae, for which ADBAC is approved.

However Patio Magic and other products containing ADBAC are effective for killing green algae on deck and ropes etc. No need to rinse or allow rain to fall. In fact apply when rain is not expected and allow to dry.

 

[Hydrozoan]

... However Patio Magic and other products containing ADBAC are effective for killing green algae on deck and ropes etc. No need to rinse or allow rain to fall. In fact apply when rain is not expected and allow to dry.

Yes, more cost-effective and less damaging to the environment in avoiding direct run-off into water, if ‘painted’ onto ropes, wooden decks etc. and allowed to dry.

I expect that dishwasher powders could indeed have been very effective, but paradoxically they also contained phosphate - now banned as an algal nutrient causing eutrophication. So one wonders if they made green staining worse in the long run!

 

[westhinder]

I earn my marina fees by editing academic documents (papers, proposals, theses) written by people whose first language is not English; mainly speakers of Chinese languages (there are several - Chinese isn't a single language). Often the original is grammatically correct, but just not the way a native English speaker would put it! They also confuse colloquial and formal usages; again, Chinese doesn't have that distinction to the extent that written English does.

English grammar is relatively simple and straightforward, but it is a very idiomatic language, much more so than many other languages, and that is what makes it so difficult to the foreign learner. Add to that the multitude of registers and social codes and as a second language user you are very likely to get it wrong at least some of the time. But that is also what makes English so fascinating to me.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

English grammar is relatively simple and straightforward, but it is a very idiomatic language, much more so than many other languages, and that is what makes it so difficult to the foreign learner. Add to that the multitude of registers and social codes and as a second language user you are very likely to get it wrong at least some of the time. But that is also what makes English so fascinating to me.

Fortunately, there are fairly strong unwritten conventions to use in academic English, aimed at presenting an unbiased representation of the matter in hand. The main problem is that people write things that would probably work in spoken, conversational, English, but in the more formal context of academic writing lose the social context and become incomprehensible. My wife's English (she's a Cantonese speaker) is perfectly easy to follow when she's talking, but her written English often needs sorting out!

When dealing with speakers of Chinese languages, the main difficulty is usually the tenses of verbs; Chinese languages aren't time-binding in the same way as Indo-European languages. They also over-alaborate descriptions; Chinese languages use emphasis by repetition, and the habit doesn't work well in English.

One of the hardest modern conventions is the avoidance of gendered pronouns! If a passage wasn't written with that in mind, it can be quite difficult to alter; it's one of those conventions that is easy enough to follow if taken into account from the beginning, but which is very difficult to fix if it wasn't.

 

[macd]

One of the hardest modern conventions is the avoidance of gendered pronouns! If a passage wasn't written with that in mind, it can be quite difficult to alter; it's one of those conventions that is easy enough to follow if taken into account from the beginning, but which is very difficult to fix if it wasn't.

There's also the consideration that most people prefer not to be an "it".

 

[johnalison]

The chief virtue of English in translation from other languages is that however bad the translation the meaning comes across, with a few exceptions. If a foreigner comes to me in the street and asks something in very limited English I am unlikely to shrug my shoulders and walk away, something that certain nationalities are known to do when the reverse is attempted.

 

[LittleSister]

The chief virtue of English in translation from other languages is that however bad the translation the meaning comes across, with a few exceptions. If a foreigner comes to me in the street and asks something in very limited English I am unlikely to shrug my shoulders and walk away, something that certain nationalities are known to do when the reverse is attempted.

You are obviously not shouting loudly enough!

 

[johnalison]

You are obviously not shouting loudly enough!

I can ask for two beers please in French, German, Polish and Amharic but all other efforts at communication results embarrassment all round.