"F**k You," Cee Lo Green (NSFW English audio and text & Spanish text)

[droe82]

There's a song that was #1 on the pop charts in the U.S. for a while called "**** You," which is actually a lot less aggressive than one might think just reading its title. Incidentally, its radio edit is called "Forget You," but that's neither here nor there.

I stumbled across a(n official?) Spanish translation of the song just now. A user, Leolibrementefly, commented:

and actually im spanish and the translation is quite shitty!!!
but well
the fuk you is right

I'm very comfortable with both standard and colloquial English, so I can tell where the song seems to divert from the standard for all those reasons songs do—rhythm, rhyme, naturalness of dialect, whatever. I wonder what any native speaker of Spanish thinks about the translation. Is it "quite shitty" in fact or could it be a little off for the same reasons? If the text is translated for any particular dialect, I'm guessing it's for U.S. Spanish-speakers if that makes any difference.

One thing that seemed strange to me in my still-nascent understanding of Spanish is that "If I was richer, I'd still be with her" is translated "Si yo fuera rico, estarias conmigo." (emphasis added) It's my understanding that forms of "ser" be used to describe properties that can't be changed. For example, Darth Vader says "Yo soy tu padre!" and not "Yo estoy tu padre!" because, once he became Luke Skywalker's biological father, it's a logical impossibility that he could ever stop being his father. Financial richness is, one would hope, especially if one be not rich, something one could change. According to my sources, I would've expected "estuviera" or "estuviese." Of course, in standard English, "If I was richer" probably should've been "If I'd been richer" or "If I were richer," depending on what the singer himself meant, but very few verbs in English have subjunctive forms, so, colloquially, even the subjunctive forms of verbs which have them are used very seldom if ever. (My saying "if one be not rich" as I wrote in this very post would probably raise quite a few eyebrows in normal conversation; I'd likely be accused of trying to talk like a 17th-century Caribbean pirate.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. So is that... like... shitty? I mean, "estuviera" is a five-syllable word; could be kind of hard to fit in the rhythm scheme.

Also, in the same phrase, it's "Si yo fuera..." where it was my understanding that the pronoun "yo" would've been dropped, Spanish being a pro-drop language. Can anyone elaborate on this? Is it totally optional to drop pronouns? Does dropping or not dropping a pronoun typically communicate or imply anything?

[poli]

Originally Posted by droe82

There's a song that was #1 on the pop charts in the U.S. for a while called "**** You," which is actually a lot less aggressive than one might think just reading its title. Incidentally, its radio edit is called "Forget You," but that's neither here nor there.

I stumbled across a(n official?) Spanish translation of the song just now. A user, Leolibrementefly, commented:

and actually im spanish and the translation is quite shitty!!!
but well
the fuk you is right

I'm very comfortable with both standard and colloquial English, so I can tell where the song seems to divert from the standard for all those reasons songs do—rhythm, rhyme, naturalness of dialect, whatever. I wonder what any native speaker of Spanish thinks about the translation. Is it "quite shitty" in fact or could it be a little off for the same reasons? If the text is translated for any particular dialect, I'm guessing it's for U.S. Spanish-speakers if that makes any difference.

One thing that seemed strange to me in my still-nascent understanding of Spanish is that "If I was richer, I'd still be with her" is translated "Si yo fuera rico, estarias conmigo." (emphasis added) It's my understanding that forms of "ser" be used to describe properties that can't be changed. For example, Darth Vader says "Yo soy tu padre!" and not "Yo estoy tu padre!" because, once he became Luke Skywalker's biological father, it's a logical impossibility that he could ever stop being his father. Financial richness is, one would hope, especially if one be not rich, something one could change. According to my sources, I would've expected "estuviera" or "estuviese." Of course, in standard English, "If I was richer" probably should've been "If I'd been richer" or "If I were richer," depending on what the singer himself meant, but very few verbs in English have subjunctive forms, so, colloquially, even the subjunctive forms of verbs which have them are used very seldom if ever. (My saying "if one be not rich" as I wrote in this very post would probably raise quite a few eyebrows in normal conversation; I'd likely be accused of trying to talk like a 17th-century Caribbean pirate.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. So is that... like... shitty? I mean, "estuviera" is a five-syllable word; could be kind of hard to fit in the rhythm scheme.

Also, in the same phrase, it's "Si yo fuera..." where it was my understanding that the pronoun "yo" would've been dropped, Spanish being a pro-drop language. Can anyone elaborate on this? Is it totally optional to drop pronouns? Does dropping or not dropping a pronoun typically communicate or imply anything?

The translation is really good. Spanish is much more serious about the use of the subjunctive than English is although I would clearly choose "if I were rich" over "if I was rich" which sounds awfully unschooled to me.

Certainly you can say si fuera rico instead of si you fuera rico but for the sake of clarity, rather than the sake of context, the tranlater make the safer decision. In Spanish, the rule is in a compound sentence, the conditional alway goes along with the past subunctive. That rule is fairly unswaying.

Estoy rico means I've got some money in my pocket. Maybe
I just got paid or maybe I just hit for $1000 dollars in the lottery. Soy
rico means I am wealthy. That's the distinction.

[sosia]

completely agree with poli.
there's also the famous song "if I were a rich man" ("Fiddler on the roof" broadway musical) translated in spanish as "si yo fuera rico". In the song the dropping of the "yo" it's not so easy due to movie-translation (number of syllabes speaked by the actor). perhaps this time it's the same.

here the usage of "ser" instead of "estar" it's also ok. when you are wishing, you wish for a not-temporary state, so you wish "si (yo) fuera rico". Powerty and power are always "ser", because usually last some time.
-ser rico
-ser pobre
-ser poderoso
-ser miserable
for "estoy rico" or "estoy pobre", poli has given a good example.
"estoy pobre" it's what teenagers says their daddies asking for allowance/payment.
saludos