Commentary on translating…

à The Twelve Dancing Princesses

This is one of the texts I’ve enjoyed the most. It’s a tale for children so it’s written with a quite easy vocabulary. Despite this, there are quite words I didn’t know the meaning of, such as “cloak” (capa), “stir” (moverse), “grove” (arboleda), “row” (remar). I also doubted whether translating “They slept in twelve beds all in one room” as “Dormían todas en doce camas en una habitación” or “Dormían en doce camas, todas en una habitación”. I chose the first one. I translated “shut and lock up” as “cerradas con candado”, but I also thought of translating it as “cerradas bajo llave”. I did not have much difficulty to translate the rest of the text.

à Dillon in pain

This text has been quite easy to translate. I had some doubts like whether translating “Dragon Naturally Speaking” into Spanish or keeping its English form. Finally I opted to write it in English. I was not sure how to translate “panting”. I doubted between “jadeando”, “resollando” or “respirando fuerte”. I chose the last one. “Friskier” (juguetón) and “be at ease” were the only words I didn’t know the meaning of. I found not many doubts compared with the other texts.

à Alice in Wonderland (Down the Rabbit-Hole)

This is my favorite text because I love the story of Alice in Wonderland. I had already red the text in Spanish so it was easier for me to translate the chapter Down the Rabbit-Hole. Anyway I had to look for the meaning of some words such as: waistcoat, pegs, whiskers, custard, scold, currants… It did not take me too much time to translate this chapter, but once finished I compared my translation with my Spanish book Alicia en el País de las Maravillas and I made a couple of changes.

à Ulysses

I think Ulysses is quite a difficult text to translate. I had some difficulties to understand the meaning from the very beginning. The first word stately made me doubt whether translating it as majestuoso or as solemne. It did not supposed a big problem to choose one word or another, but this doubt of choosing one meaning made me slow down while translating the text into Spanish since I had to check more sources than just one dictionary.

à Titus Andronicus

The task with this text was to make a commentary of the translation made in this web: http://www.uv.es/fores/OffTitQcolores.00.es.html. Before this, I decided to translate an excerpt (Act II, scene IV) by myself and then compare it to the translation mentioned above. I left on the web my translation but after comparing it to the one in the web I’ve realized mine is quite a bad one. The vocabulary I’ve used is simpler and it does not sound very literary. Here is a list of some verses from the original text. The first translation is mine; the second one is the one in the web mentioned before.

- So now go tell, and if thy tongue can speak,

Who ‘twas that cut thy tongue and ravish’d thee

1. Pues, dinos ahora, si puede tu lengua hablar

quien fue quien cortó tu lengua y te violó

2. Ve, ahora, ve y si tu lengua sabe hablar di

Quién te cortó la lengua y quién de ti abusó

- Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands

Hath lopp’d, and hew’d, and made thy body bare

1. Habla, gentil sobrina. Qué manos más severas y poco caballerosas

Han cortado, y tallado, y han dejado desnudo tu cuerpo.

2. Habla dulce nieta, qué severas manos violentas,

Han podado, y mermado, y han privado tu cuerpo.

If you compare both translations you can immediately see a huge difference. Mine is a much worst translation, a more colloquial one whereas the second one is a more appropriate and a good and correct one.

à Seamus Heaney’s poems

A lot of the vocabulary used by Seamus Heaney is quite complicated. I had to look for the meaning of a lot of words, and having not found an adequate enough one I decided to keep the forms used in this book. The list of words I had never heard before is a quite long one: squat, snug, strain, wing, sod, stumble, flax-dam, spawn, clutch...

It’s been of great help for me to translate the poems Digging, Follower and Death of a naturalist to consult the translations made in the book Campo Abierto (Colección Visor de poesía, Madrid 2005).

à Shakespeare’s sonnets

The main complication while translating Shakespeare is the use he makes of archaic words, for instance the word bewray is an archaic form which means to disclose or betray. I found the sonnets in wikipedia and I found of great help the synopsis made of each of the sonnets, since it helped me a lot to understand the texts. It helped me for example to know that sonnet 3 is addressed to a man, and at the beginning I thought he referred to a woman.

à Man and Superman

I did not found much complication while translating this story by Bernard Shaw. I translated an excerpt from act IV and I think it’s not a difficult one. The only thing is that the author uses abbreviated forms and expressions, such as ‘in a jiffy’ (en un segundo/santiamén) I was not familiarized with.