Anyhow, I thought I would try some more books ... and the next one that I've got both the Spanish and English versions of that I found in all the heaps of books in my "office" was William the Superman/Guillermo el Superhombre by the wonderful Richmal Crompton.. I must say, when I found this, the first Spanish William book I ever had, I devoured it like, er, something you devour. Some of you younger people might not know about William ... he's about 14 (?), he has a "gang" called the Outlaws, he is, let's say, rather imaginative and impressionable, and he is constantly getting into trouble. Unlike the young people of today, he seems to be able to ramble at will throughout his village and its surroundings at will for hours on end. I think his parents are glad to be rid of him for as long as it lasts.
I did the same thing as before ... I searched though the English version to find odd expressions, idioms, quirky bits of English, and then I looked to see what the translator had done to them when he turned them into Spanish.
It was quite fun actually, and educational. A potent mixture, in my opinion.... so here's some of the things I found....
Something was afoot and William was leader ...
Se estaba tramando algo y Guillermo era líder ...
Freddie Parker brought a packet of liquorice allsorts...
Freddie Parker llevaba un paquete de regaliz ....
Dogs in mangers, that's what you are, the lot of you ....
Unos egoistones, sí , eso es lo que sois todos .
" Mine was finishin' off her Spring cleanin' " said William.
" La mía estaba terminado su tarea de limpieza " explicó William.
" Mine was takin' forty winks "
" La mía estaba descabezando un sueño"
" We were just havin' a nice quiet game when they came bargin' in ."
" Nosotros teníamos en marcha un juego entretenido cuando irrumpíeron en el sitio."
It happened that everyone was feeling a little flat.
Sucedía que todos estaban sintiéndose allí un tanto aplanados.
" He nearly snapped my head off when I just mentioned it."
" Estuvo a punto de tirame algo a la cabeza cuando me expresé en tales términos."
Again, we see all sorts of ways of dealing with the translation of these odd expressions .. you can work out what the translator has done for yourselves. What he hasn't done is replicate the slangy shortening of words .... " finishin' off her Spring cleanin" .... "havin' a nice quiet game" and " takin' forty winks" ... in the original this is to be found on every page, even every paragraph. Maybe this just doesn't happen in written Spanish ... I have been trying to remember if I've ever seen it.
OK .... I hope you found that interesting. So now it's the music, and I'm always up for a ukelele cover ... here we are with one for Nena Daconte's " No sé cómo decirte" ...
Who said that ? Art Garfunkel ? I can't remember.
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