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A convoluted sentence

 

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  #1  
Old November 10, 2021, 08:56 AM
yaynay yaynay is offline
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A convoluted sentence

Me gustaría más bien comenzar para poder llegar a este nivel tengo que ir es desarrollando cómo se llega a trabajar en las escuelas. ¿Puedo?

This sentence is driving me nuts. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
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  #2  
Old November 10, 2021, 12:02 PM
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Rusty Rusty is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yaynay View Post
Me gustaría más bien comenzar. Para poder llegar a este nivel, tengo que (ir es desarrollando) cómo se llega a trabajar en las escuelas. ¿Puedo?
I've added some possible punctuation marks as an aid, but the author has made a mistake (highlighted in purple and embedded in parentheses). We'll need more context, in order to help make sense of it.
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Old November 10, 2021, 12:24 PM
yaynay yaynay is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty View Post
I've added some possible punctuation marks as an aid, but the author has made a mistake (highlighted in purple and embedded in parentheses). We'll need more context, in order to help make sense of it.
Thanks for the reply. The speaker is a construction worker, who is about to tell how he reached the current position he is in at his construction job. He was asked a simple question about how he got to work in the construction or demolition of schools. Most likely in the sentence in question he doesn't want to answer the question straight away, but is maybe asking permission to recount how he started and got to the point in his career where he is now, culminating with how he now gets his school projects.
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Old November 10, 2021, 01:55 PM
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Thanks for the extra information.

My guess is that the speaker is saying, in the beginning sentence (using my idea of where punctuation should have been used), that he'd rather just start. It then looks like he goes on to restate what he thinks is the simple question he was asked, but throws in some wording that trips me up. I believe the question at the end is "Can I start?" but it's hard to tell whether he's asking permission to answer the question or to start working.

I'm still unsure about the stuff appearing in parentheses.

tengo que ir = I have to go (leave)
This could be an interjection or a filler of some sort. I can't tell.

es = is
desarrollando = developing
'es desarrollando' could begin an adverbial clause, which seems out of place here, unless 'tengo que ir' is a filler of some sort, or a break in his train of thought, and he starts up again. But I can't tell. He may have been confused, and the final question could have meant, "Am I right?"

Is there anything specific in the sentences that you don't understand, other than the stuff in parentheses?
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Old November 10, 2021, 04:22 PM
yaynay yaynay is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty View Post
Thanks for the extra information.

My guess is that the speaker is saying, in the beginning sentence (using my idea of where punctuation should have been used), that he'd rather just start. It then looks like he goes on to restate what he thinks is the simple question he was asked, but throws in some wording that trips me up. I believe the question at the end is "Can I start?" but it's hard to tell whether he's asking permission to answer the question or to start working.

I'm still unsure about the stuff appearing in parentheses.

tengo que ir = I have to go (leave)
This could be an interjection or a filler of some sort. I can't tell.

es = is
desarrollando = developing
'es desarrollando' could begin an adverbial clause, which seems out of place here, unless 'tengo que ir' is a filler of some sort, or a break in his train of thought, and he starts up again. But I can't tell. He may have been confused, and the final question could have meant, "Am I right?"

Is there anything specific in the sentences that you don't understand, other than the stuff in parentheses?
I think the real culprit here is the lack of proper punctuation by whoever transcribed whatever the speaker was saying. With that in mind, I added what I think would be the correct punctuation at correct places given how the full sentences is just convoluted mess of multiple things. I came up with this:

I would rather start-- To be able to reach this level that I’m at-- I have to elaborate it- how you get to work in schools. Can I?

The question was this: How do you get into the school side of the construction business?

So instead of answering the question directly, he is asking for permission to describe his whole story from the beginning (which is what he does after the asker says yes). "desarrollando" or "developing" here I take as he wants to develop the answer from the beginning, so I think the word "elaborate" would be most fitting here.
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  #6  
Old November 29, 2021, 05:12 AM
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In my opinion he is just trying to give a badly expressed introduction of how he started working and how it evolved the situation until he started working demolishing schools.
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