All day long, I think about Spanish. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I think in Spanish (though this never lasts for long). When I’m not working on my Spanish, I wish I were. And sometimes, like last night, I’ll stay up long after Kris has gone to bed just so I can read more Spanish or do more flashcards.
My favorite activity is translation. I love taking a Spanish-language book or poem or song or comic and working out the English translation. It’s such lovely, imprecise work. (Aly and I have had some good conversations about how translation is never an exact thing because words in different languages never have direct analogs, and because of cultural nuances.)
Here’s a poem I’ve been working on today, a poem by Amado Nervo, a Mexican writer from a hundred years ago. This poem is called “En Paz“, or “At Peace”. It’s about a man nearing the end of his life.
Muy cerca de mi ocaso, yo te bendigo, vida,
porque nunca me diste ni esperanza fallida,
ni trabajos injustos, ni pena inmerecida;
porque veo al final de mi rudo camino
que yo fui el arquitecto de mi propio destino;
que si extraje la miel o la hiel de las cosas,
fue porque en ellas puse hiel o mieles sabrosas:
cuando planté rosales, coseché siempre rosas.
…Cierto, a mis lozanías va a seguir el invierno:
¡mas tú no me dijiste que mayo fuese eterno!
Hallé sin duda largas noches de mis penas;
mas no me prometiste tú sólo noches buenas;
y en cambio tuve algunas santamente serenas…
Amé, fui amado, el sol acarició mi faz.
¡Vida, nada me debes! ¡Vida, estamos en paz!
And here is my very amateur translation, with an attempt to keep things poetic:
As I approach my twilight, I bless you, Life,
because you never gave me false hope,
nor unjust labor, nor undeservéd pain;
because I see at the end of my long journey
that I was the maker of my own destiny;
that if I’ve taken sweetness or bitterness from things,
it was because I put sweetness or bitterness in them:
when I planted roses, I always harvested roses.
Indeed, my blossoms will continue into winter:
Although you never promised me an eternal spring!
It’s true that I’ve had long nights filled with pain and sorrow;
but you never promised that I’d only have good nights;
and in exchange, some nights were holy and serene.
I loved, was loved, and the sun caressed my face.
Life, you owe me nothing! Life, we are at peace!
I’ll freely admit that I may have messed up this translation in places. I’m not familiar with many Spanish idioms, and I suspect there are a few phrases here that I’ve translated literally but which ought to be taken in another way. (“Trabajos injustos“, for instance, and “pena inmerecida“.) But I’ve done my best to convert a beautiful Spanish poem into English.
Back when our book group read the first volume of Proust, I remember that Pam complained that the translation was imprecise. She wanted it to be literal. The translation we read was the classic from C.K. Scott Moncrieff, who translated for mood and feeling and not exactly word for word. This bugged Pam. It didn’t bug me.
The more I learn about languages, the less I like word-for-word translations. They may capture the technical meanings, but they don’t convey the deeper dimensions, the wonder behind the words.
I still have a lot of Spanish to learn — I’ve barely begun my journey — but I look forward to lots and lots of future translating. It’s my favorite part of this process.
Observation: translating poetry is as much fun as doing a crossword puzzle. However, when you’re done with a crossword puzzle, you end up with a dirty newspaper; when you’re done with translating a poem, you have a work of art.
Welcome, colleague!
I’d say undeserved punishment.
Also: Undoubtedly I endured long nights of sorrow
I think you nailed the roses usage.
Fun 🙂
I once dated a native Spanish speaker and recall a conversation we had about words, usage, and translations. We were at the beach and it was a warm, Spring day. I told him I felt like wading, so I took off my shoes, rolled up my pants and went in. When I came back to him on the beach he asked me what word I used to describe what I had just done. “You mean there is actually a word in English for walking in the water?!” I asked him how he would say this in Spanish and he said he would say he was walking in the water; pretty simple. I also asked him if there were other words in English that did not translate into Spanish. He thought about it for a few minutes then said “Fluffy. There is no word in Spanish for fluffy.”
This guy had a masters degree and taught Spanish at a very well respected high school, so it wasn’t as if he was ignorant. English is so flexible because we have borrowed words and phrases from so many other languages, that’s all.
Es un bonito poema J. D. No lo conocía. Algunas cosas las traduciría de otra manera, aunque estoy aprendiendo inglés y puedo estar equivocado. Por ejemplo, yo creo que traduciría “rudo camino” como “rough way” y “trabajos injustos” como “unfair toil”.
En cualquier caso tu traducción está muy bien.
Saludos desde España.
If you can translate this well after only a few months study, you are doing very well. I am not sure how useful translating poems would be as a practical matter, since nobody speaks in verse and the vocabulary may be more refined than needed for daily conversation. What helps me with my English is to think in it, which at first is tough but with practice it becomes very natural. Instead of trying a literal translation, I think in terms of “what’s the equivalent way of saying this?” Saludos desde Orlando, FL
Hector
I am attempting to learn french by the same method: read and study french everyday, in addition to speaking with my french friend who brutally corrects my pronunciation. It realize it is needed, because reading and writing a language is only one part of fluency. I need to find a local french meetup to join so that I can get more practice conversing.
I am not yet to the point where I can think in french however. 🙂 I can agree that literal translation is very inaccurate, even from my short experience reading my reader and Le Petit Nicholas. It is DEFINITELY not word for word translation.
Here is to becoming bi/multi-lingual!