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I am trying to edit English subtitles for a short video on an educational project. A person there says something (in Swedish) which the Swedish copywriter translated as

My name is Hamdi and I come from Syria.

For me this feels slightly odd; I am suspicious that this is just a word-by-word translation from Swedish; hence I am inclinded to correct it to

My name is Hamdi, and I am from Syria.

but then I am not a native speaker of English myself (German background), so I am not sure about it.

Clearly subtitles in a video documentary have to be as short, simple, unambiguous and accessible as possible, or in other words: the sentence should be as straightforward as they come.

So, which one is better?

(Note that this question is not about grammar. Both sentence are acceptable in terms of grammar. It is about stylistic appropriateness for the purpose.)

Christian Geiselmann
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  • The person who voted for "close" is invited to explain his or her reason. Thank you. - There is a tag "expression-choice" available, and it is explicitely for questions about selecting the best possible expression from a given set. So what could be wrong with my question? – Christian Geiselmann Nov 01 '19 at 17:40
  • It's not actually a "close" vote. I voted to migrate the question to English Language Learners, on the grounds that this isn't something that would concern the target user base here (linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts). – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '19 at 17:43
  • @FumbleFingers Thanks for the explanation. I might add, however, that I asked this question not as an English language learner but as a "serious English language enthusiast", and here especially with the aim of delivering a professional subtitling. Hope that counts? – Christian Geiselmann Nov 01 '19 at 18:19
  • Both are perfectly correct of course, but my personal preference is 'my name is Hamdi and I'm from Syria'. In Arabic it would be 'ana min Syria' which in a word-for-word translation is 'I from Syria' since Arabic doesn't use the copula in this context. – S Conroy Nov 01 '19 at 18:21
  • ChristianGeiselmann: Well, I'm certainly not going to stick my neck out and claim you're not a "serious English language enthusiast". But hopefully you aren't going to complain that "English Language Learners" implies negative characterization. There are few if any contexts where native Anglophones would distinguish between [person] is / comes* from [place]. And approximately, I'd say if native speakers* would find the question trivial or "meaningless", it doesn't belong on ELU. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '19 at 18:47
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    Heh heh. Short bit from the movie "Short Circuit." Speaking to a guy with dark skin, straight black hair, dark brown eyes, and a very pronounced accent. "Where are you from?" "Chicago." "No, I mean your family." "Ahhh! New Jersey!" – puppetsock Nov 01 '19 at 19:11
  • You are on the wrong site. Try SE English Language Learners – David Nov 01 '19 at 20:08
  • @FumbleFingers I do indeed not see anything negative about being an English language learner. I even would point out that every working brain is always a learning brain whatever it does. So, of course, also linguists (which I may say I am sort of), etymologists (which I am at least on an occasional base) and serious enthusiasts (which I am anyway) are always learners as well, nolens volens. Hence I even struggle to understand the differentiation of the two groups, unless you understand "learners" as "total beginners". And my question was not intended for a public of such. Cheers. – Christian Geiselmann Nov 01 '19 at 20:14
  • ChristianGeiselmann: There were mixed reactions to the idea of a separate "Learners" site when it was set up some years ago, and very likely not all ELU users today endorse the existence of ELL. But in practice, although obviously ELL handles many "basic" questions from "total beginners", it also gets quite a few from people you'd be unlikely to recognize as non-native speakers just from the actual text in their posts. And because the Answers are more targeted to nns (often, taking special account of the asker's specific native language), I think they tend to get better "service" there! – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '19 at 13:40
  • @FumbleFingers Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate your attention, and I understand the idea behind it; although I would not have been supportive of the split had I been participant to that debate, for reasons outlined above; moreover, there are anyway so many questions here in ELU that, following the ELU-ELL-devide logic, would rather fit into ELL that I am all the more unconvinced of the concept. See for example the most recent https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/517237/what-does-fancy-being-mean, which his a simple request for the meaning of a word to be explained. – Christian Geiselmann Nov 02 '19 at 18:17
  • ChristianGeiselmann: I don't know if you've ever struggled (or might still struggle) with how English uses *will* for "future" referents. But I certainly think this ELL answer, for example, is useful to learners who are apt to say things like We will eat when you will sit down. More so than anything in the much longer answers to When I am 18, I will… or When I will be 18, I will… or Future tense in conditional clauses on ELU. – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '19 at 19:27
  • @FumbleFingers Your last comment refers to what exactly? – Christian Geiselmann Nov 03 '19 at 13:35
  • I mean non-native speakers often struggle with details of "idiomacy" in English. Specifically, that vexed issue about "future tense in conditional clauses" often leads nns to say things like We will eat when you will sit down, which the natives would never say. I just happened to notice that ELL answer for other reasons, and it seemed to me it's a good example of a case where that "short & to the point" ELL** answer would probably be more useful to the average learner than anything on either of the two ELU posts. YMMD, of course. – FumbleFingers Nov 03 '19 at 14:26
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    @FumbleFingers Ah, okay, now I understand. You wanted to give an example for a question that rightfully has its place in the ELL forum as opposed to the ELU forum. Yes, good example. - Still I think my question was not of that kind. Especially as native speakers (those who managed to answer before the question got closed) seem to be devided pretty much 50:50 over it. - I don't know, perhaps we have been talking past each other here. My question was not about grammar (both sentences are acceptable) but about stylistic appropriateness for the purpose. – Christian Geiselmann Nov 04 '19 at 00:02
  • At least one of the answerers here isn't a native speaker anyway. But check out this NGram showing how *is from* has displaced *comes from*. I wouldn't say the latter is "formal" though - it's just that people tend to think that about "declining" usages. – FumbleFingers Nov 04 '19 at 12:35
  • ...and I would just add that the average Englishman, for example, probably wouldn't use either of your alternatives. He'd most likely say My name's John Smith and I'm English*. – FumbleFingers Nov 04 '19 at 12:40

2 Answers2

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"I come from Syria" sounds a bit formal, or bookish.

"Name's Hamdi. I'm from Syria." is just fine, and is shorter.

Ricky
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I am from Syria.

I come from Syria.

I think both are correct and mean the same thing.Both mean that they belong to Syria. I think native speakers of English may prefer to say I come from England to I am from England

Here are two links which give the usage.

https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/i%20am%20from%20india

https://www.linguee.com/english-german/translation/i+come+from+england.html

Community
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Jvlnarasimharao
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    "...belong to Syria" sounds very wrong! The phrases indicate the origin and nothing more! – Nikos Hidalgo Nov 01 '19 at 18:34
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    Thanks for the links. As for the Linguee finds: I think we need to be cautious here. The majority of these quotations with come from England have a pretty different context: not a person saying I come [or am] from England but things like The calibre designation for shotguns comes from England, or Coming from England, I sailed to France or whatever. I am not interested in the general frequency of the two terms. My question is regarding that specific context of a person stating their country of origin, in the briefest and most idiomatic way possible (i.e. for a video subtitle). – Christian Geiselmann Nov 01 '19 at 20:25