Friday, December 19, 2008

lost in translation

[for English version, see below]

Voy a hacer algo divertido. Escribo en castellano, y cuando termino, pongo todo dentro de una ventana en Google translator a ver qué sale. Si no crees que es importante tener una persona viva que traduce tu trabajo, pues puede ser que este va a cambiar tu opinión. A ver. Un pequeño resumen de los últimos días. El fin de semana pasado, fui a Huelva y Punta Umbría en la costa, cerca de Portugal para otro torneo de frisbee. Fue muy pero muy divertido. Estaba con amigos de antes y también personas nuevas. La mayoria de España y Portugal, como no era un torneo muy grande, pero también había personas de Alemanía y Suiza. Quizás más, pero no me acuerdo. Hizo buen tiempo con la excepcion del domingo cuando llovió y pasamos un poco de frio. Pero el sabado y lunes (como era puente, o fiesta) hizo muy buen tiempo. my bañé en el oceano, aunque era muy frio. Pero... estaba allí, y fue necesario. ;) Este semana llegó un amigo mio de la universidad a visitar una semana. (David Bontrager, para los que le conocen.) Es divertido tener alguien de Goshen aquí, pero tambien una mezcla un poco raro de mis dos mundos. :) Lllegó sin su maleta, asi que teníamos que llamar, llamar, llamar y por fin (2 días luego) quedar con el chico de AirEuropa en el centro de la ciuadad a recoger la maleta. Intenté conseguir algo de compensación para David (aunque no tuvo que comprar otras cosas, solo fue un pequeño inconveniente) pero no tuve éxito. Da igual. Bueno, entonces hoy vamos a hacer algo de turismo y tomar el sol, porque hace muy buen día. Y ahora: la traduccion!

* I'll put little comments in brackets *

I'm going to do something fun. I write in Castilian, and when finished, put everything inside a window on Google translator to see what comes out. If you do not think it is important to keep a person alive who translates your work, as it may be that this is going to change your opinion. Let's see. A short summary of recent days. Last weekend, I went to Huelva and Punta Umbria on the coast near Portugal for another tournament frisbee. But it was very fun. She [I] was with friends before and also new people. Most [people were] of Spain and Portugal, as it was not a very big tournament, but there were also people from Germany and Switzerland. Perhaps more, but I do not agree. He made good time [the weather was nice] with the exception of Sunday when it rained and we had a little cold. But the Saturday and Monday (as was the bridge, or feast [bridge is what they say when they extend a weekend holiday to a weekday. or fiesta]) did a very good time. my bathe in the ocean, but it was very cold. But ... was there, and it was necessary. ;) This week a friend of mine came from college to visit a week. (David Bontrager, for those who know him.) It's fun to have someone here from Goshen, but also a bit strange mixture of my two worlds. :) He arrived without his suitcase, so I had to draw, draw, draw [call, call, call] and finally (2 days later) left [met up] with the boy AirEuropa in the center of town to collect the bag. I tried to get something to compensate for David (though he did not have to buy other things, was only a small drawback) but I was not successful. Never mind. Well, then today we're going to do something for tourism and sunbathing, because it makes very good day. And now: the translation!

* really not as bad as I was expecting! But I also was more careful in my Spanish writing than I usually am...* :)

1 comment:

cgm said...

The two biggest problems that I have seen for translators are figures of speech and typos. "hizo buen tiempo" is close to what I mean by figures of speech. Sayings that have meaning beyond their mere words. They get translated literally and don't mean the same thing to other peoples. Typos cause problems for obvious reasons. People can parse "teh" but a translator has no idea what it means. Thsi sentnc is mumbo jumbo to at ranslater, but I bet you can read it.

So if you take your time, like you said, and make sure spell correctly, fix typos, and state things plainly, they do a pretty good job. =)