When translating from one language to another, you normally wish to communicate the idea that the speaker wishes to convey, not the words they use to do it.

When a Klingon says {[sentence] net jalchugh, [...]}, the idea they wish to express is normally roughly analogous to an irrealis conditional in English ("were it the case that [setence], [...]").

You could imagine cases where somebody uses the expression in a more literal sense (qIt ghu' qaq net jalchugh, chaq qaS Daw'.), and in that case it will be up to the translator to distinguish between the two senses.

It's not that different from English:

"Assuming pigs could fly, they would be far superior to carrier pigeons."

"Assuming pigs could fly, I threw one off the balcony. I shouldn't have done that."

From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces@lists.kli.org> on behalf of mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2020 14:01
To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list
Subject: [tlhIngan Hol] irrealis {net jal} and the {net jalchugh}

Suppose we say: {tlhIngan SoH net jalchugh..}

The literal translation of this phrase is, "if someone imagines that you're a klingon..". However, for reasons I never understood, its' "final" translation is "if you were a klingon..".

Why is this mismatch happening ? Is it a "because maltz said so" thing or something ?

Anyways, moving on..

Assume that there are two klingons speaking, with regard to a recent romulan incursion. So, one of them asks: "how did it go ?" And the second wants to reply by saying "it could have been bad, but luckily..".

I'm wondering.. Could we express this by saying something like the following ?

{qablaHpu' ghu' net jal..}

The literal translation would be "the situation has been able to be bad"; but why couldn't we translate this klingon sentence as in the {net jalchugh} case, thus producing the meaning: "the situation could be bad" ?

Could we use the {net jal} on its own, producing a similar irrealis, (or however the @!#@ it's called), with the {net jalchugh} ?

mayqel qunen'oS