Aun siendo joven

[Perikles]

I'm not sure whether this is a question for translation, vocabulary or grammar. Ah well.

F subía y bajaba las escaleras con un cuidado especial, aun siendo joven, porque siempre había pensado que la vejez empezaba con una primera caída sin importancia, y la muerte seguía con la segunda. (Márquez again)

'aun siendo joven' has to be translated as 'even when he was young' (because in context, he is already old).

This seems to me to be an unusual application of a present participle (=gerundio), and I can't offhand think of another language where it would be used to describe something in the past. Is this 'standard' Spanish, or unusual?

Thanks

[poli]

More context is needed, but as it is, the character seems to be a hypochondriac or a youngish person with great fear of approaching age.

[aleCcowaN]

Absolutely, standard Spanish.

Your interpretation is right.

Aún siendo joven, aún cuando joven, incluso de joven, .... (some more) .... are all immediately parsed effortlessly as the right meaning, without mixing them up with "aún siendo joven, a pesar de ser joven, ... (some more) ..." [If the wording is the same, the neighbouring terms will tell clearly, and the context will confirm it]

[Don José]

I was going to say the same when the phone rang.
As you seem to be used to cite him as Márquez, I inform you that at least in Sapin, he is usually called as García Márquez. I don know if you are aware of the use of Spanish people's names, but his first name is Gabriel, and being both García and Márquez too frequent names, we use both of them.

[aleCcowaN]

Calling him Márquez is calling him by the family name of his mother, so it's between calling him a bastard and diminishing him by calling him loosely. Of course, that's not Perikles' intention. But it's important for him to know. I know in English they use the family names in other order because my great grandfather -an Argentine, but my last 100% "racially" British ancestor- was called Noble Cowan in papers in English and Cowan y Noble in papers in Spanish.

[Perikles]

Thanks - I was not aware of this convention. I would have thought the one name would have been sufficient for such a well-known writer. I am used to quoting writers using just one surname, because most people I have read only have one surname, or in the case of Greek, just one first name.

[aleCcowaN]

It depends on the country. In mine it's not usual to use that combination, but it's usual for some people to have "doble apellido", that is such pair of family names was frozen up some time in the past because the name became famous of prestigious or because it allowed to identify different branches of the same family, or a non Hispanic origin. In other countries the double family name allow to differentiate among people with the same name. If 10% of people is Fernández and 10% of the men among them were called Manuel some time (very original indeed), well being Manuel Fernández Cuevas was a way to avoid confusions -though there were a lot of Manuel Fernández Fernández-. The other way would have been allowing people to change their family names, as they did in Sweden, but that is way too modern and liberal.

[Don José]

so it's between calling him a bastard and diminishing him by calling him loosely.

Hi, the president of Spain should hear of that.
He's called José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (first name = José Luis) and they used the letters ZP (ZaPatero) for the election campaign. The news uses to call him just Zapatero.

By the way, from some years ago, parents can choose the surnames order in Spain. If they don't reach an agreement, the state employee at the office will decide.

I would have thought the one name would have been sufficient for such a well-known writer.

It would be sufficient in a number of cases (Borges, Rulfo, Cela ...) But if you call him by his first surname (García) it could be also García Lorca. It's the problem of having such a common surname. And Márquez is also a very common surname.

I wonder if this is the same kind of reason why you call him Scott Fitzgerald instead of Fitzgerald, supossing that is such a common name.

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by Don José

By the way, from some years ago, parents can choose the surnames order in Spain. If they don't reach an agreement, the state employee at the office will decide.

¿En serio? Los periódicos me daban la impresión de que fue una novedad este año.

[Don José]

If they don't reach an agreement, the state employee at the office will decide.

This is the new thing from this year.

Now you make me doubt about the other sentence.