Translation - Spanish-English - De mañana en mañana, te come la piraña.

Hi Lucila

It doesn't come over too well in English, as a literal translation.

I am taking the general meaning of the Spanish original to be "bit by bit, things in life grind you down".

We need to find an equivalent in English, in order for the translation to be acceptable.

Bises
Tantine

So it's meaning or transltion?
If it is meaning, have to change the subeject.

Hi Lucila

A translation is almost never "word to word". A literal translation is rarely understandable in the target language and at best "looks" translated.

The work of a translator is to convey the sense of a text from one language into another, this means that we must take into consideration how things are said in the target language and not only how it was put in the source language.

To show you one example - In English we say "It's raining cats and dogs" (an expression which means it is raining very hard, pouring down). If I translate this in a literal, word to word fashion, into Spanish it could give: "está lloviendo gatos y perros". Which doesn't mean it's raining hard.

See what I mean?

So we have to translate the idea, in the case of this text, one of something bothering you, eroding you, day after day (If I have sufficiently understood the Spanish)

Bises
Tantine

Tantine, I agree with you with the sense of the text but it is not what the saldorsi asked. If he wanted the meaning, why doesn't mark it?
Ok, if you want to reject it, no problem, I'm not here by the points, just for culture.
I'm going out today.
Thanks for everything.
Good bye.

Hi Lucila

Maybe I'm not explaining things correctly. So, I will ask a Spanish expert to tell you in Spanish.

Your translation, as it stands, does not mean anything in English.

I imagine that the requestor would like to know how to make his phrase in Spanish come across in English. If he just wanted to know how to say each one of the separate words in English, he could use a dictionary or an automatic translation tool - which would give more or less the phrase you have submitted.

Please either find an equivalent in English or I will be obliged to reject your tranlsation.

Bises
Tantine

[note]Guilon could you explain to Lucila that I need a locution, and not a word to word translation? Gracias.

CC: guilon

Tantine, excuse me but I understood what you said, don't need a translation.

Hi everybody,
How about putting a literal translation in the Translation field, and the figurative translation (the meaning, or the usual English expression) in the Remarks field, under the translation?
Or vice versa?
I often have to do that for Japanese and Chinese, because they are so different from Western languages...
---
eg:
Translation: Day after day, the piranha eats you
---
Remarks: This Spanish expression means: "Little by little, things grind you down"

Tantine is absolutely correct. I get very tired when non-native speakers try to tell English speakers how we should understand things not written in the context of our culture. If you want to translate into English then use our language and cultural references in the meaning. If you want to do a word for word translation then simply send the requestor to a dictionary and he will fail when sending letters or talking to a native English speaker. I also resent the way you answered Tantine, and I would simply reject your translation without further correspondence. In fact I would have already rejected it had you spoken back to me like that.

Hmmm...
It therefore seems it would be preferable to indeed put the figurative meaning in the Translation field, like this:
---
Translation:
Little by little, things grind you down
---
Remarks:
Literally: "Day after day, the piranha eats you"
---

It's just that I find there's a certain beauty about each individual language's way of saying things, and it seems a pity to not reflect some of that at least, in the Remarks section...?
Hmmm...
Well, it's not my judgment call but yours, Tantine, so I'll let you decide what to do, of course! I just thought I might make a suggestion, just in case it might be found useful...?

She doesn't want to translate she wants to be a dictionary. REJECT IT! Even the literal translation she provided is poor: "From morning to morning, piranha eats you" At the very least it should be "From the morning to the next morning, the piranha will eat you". Which sort of is understandable if the person knows what a piranha is...but if you don't know what a piranha is, you think she is saying gibberish. It is a shame to translate a saying which has some context in the original lange into English Gibberish, just to satisfy a desire to do a word for word translation, even if it means bending stubborn latin pride and accepting an English equivilent.

Ian

I am a stalwart defender of local locutions, I agree absolutely that we should put both the culturally "understandable" version (that is the fully fledged translation) and the "picturesque" version (the literal translation).

It's fun seeing how different cultures describe or encode phenonema that are experienced by all but related in so many different manners.

"Il pleut des chats et des chiens"="It's raining ropes"

I think your suggestion is a good one Ian, in the future I will try and always add the literal translation of "ready made" expressions in the comments box.

Bises
Tantine

Yeah, that's the beauty of learning languages, somehow; that there are so many paradigms, so many ways of looking at the world, interpreting it, making sense of our shared human experience...
That sometimes (as in this case), the paradigm is influenced by the local environment the culture lives in, which offers analogies for thought and expressions of that thought.
And that at other times, a culture can produce a totally unique worldview, seemingly unrelated to their physical surroundings, just somehow out of their particular Genius, and then the Spirit of that culture expresses itself in its language, in so many magical, wonderful ways of saying things...
PS: Have you decided to correct and validate this translation after all?

Oh yes, Ian

I'll correct and validate, as long as everyone is ok with both the "meaning only": -

"morning after morning day, the piranha eats you"

and the "official" translation:-

"day after day, life grinds you down"

OK?

Bises
Tantine

Great!
I hope everybody will be happy with that!
I personally think we could go ahead and validate it now, because we could always alter it later, if anyone has strident objections to it?

Happy happy happy