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Subject : # 14231 Traducció de Textos Literaris Anglesos Gr.A


Student´s name : Harsulescu, Gabriela



My comments on the process of translating one of Brothers´ Grimm tales: “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”

The greatest difficulty I encountered in this text was translating into Spanish the constructions typically used in fairytales because even though I have read my share of fairytales, I’ve done so in my mother tongue which is not Spanish. And then the descriptions that are quite clear and precise in English, often sounded confusing when I translated them into Spanish.

I also had a hard time deciding how to translate “old woman” because I was trying to avoid compressing the two words in one but nothing sounded right so, finally, I used “anciana”. I was forced to omit “fast” in “fast asleep” because to keep it would have meant a complicated and much longer construction so I just said “hazte el dormido”.

With the expression “did not stir hand or foot” I took advantage of the fact that the Spanish expression mentions the leg and went for it: “durmiendo a pata suelta”. To translate “token” in “to take away some token of the place” I have doubted between “señal”, “prueba” and “recordatorio”. “Prueba” sounded too CSI-like and “recordatorio” too souvenir-like so I finally used “señal”.

Especially difficult was the translation of the wonderfully visual expression “worn to pieces” in “till their shoes were worn to pieces” that I translated as “hasta destrozar los zapatos”, unable to find a more visual expression in Spanish.

Click to see my translation of The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

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Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Gabriela Harsulescu
gahar@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press