Advanced Translation Help

[Shiny]

Hello! I need help translating the following passage into Spanish:

"I got a pair of sunglasses this morning. I wouldn't have bothered if my friend Jacob had not first gotten a pair and begun wearing them. He was being ironic because the sunglasses were promoting a college which I knew that he couldn't have the slightest interest in, but there he was wearing the sunglasses and even a promotional button, looking like the perfect college hopeful. His cheerful humor was infectious, so I got a pair and joined in".

I've been trying to translate it myself for quite a while, but I'm not sure when to use imperfect subjunctive or imperfect conditional or perfect subjunctive or whatever this combination of tenses could be, and it just gets me all mixed up. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[wrholt]

Please post your own attempt at a translation, and we can help you to refine it.

[Shiny]

Please post your own attempt at a translation, and we can help you to refine it.

Oh, of course. I'll italicize the parts which I'm particularly unsure of:

Esta mañana obtuve unas gafas del sol. No me hubiera molestado si mi amigo Jacob no ya hubiera obtenido unas de las mismas gafas del sol. Estaba siendo irónico por que las gafas del sol promueven una unversidad cual yo sabía que no podía sentir interés por, pero allí estaba llevando las gafas del sol e incluso un alfiler promocional, aparentando como el aspirante colegio perfecto. Su humor alegre era infeccioso, así que obtenía unas gafas y me unía.

I'm keenly aware that this translation is atrocious. It's extremely literal, I seriously doubt that the tenses are in agreement, and I lack knowledge of many basic transitive verbs; but it's the best I can do.

[aleCcowaN]

"I got a pair of sunglasses this morning. I wouldn't have bothered if my friend Jacob had not first gotten a pair and begun wearing them. He was being ironic because the sunglasses were promoting a college which I knew that he couldn't have the slightest interest in, but there he was wearing the sunglasses and even a promotional button, looking like the perfect college hopeful. His cheerful humor was infectious, so I got a pair and joined in".




Esta mañana obtuve unas gafas del sol. No me hubiera molestado si mi amigo Jacob no ya hubiera obtenido unas de las mismas gafas del sol. Estaba siendo irónico por que las gafas del sol promueven una unversidad cual yo sabía que no podía sentir interés por, pero allí estaba llevando las gafas del sol e incluso un alfiler promocional, aparentando como el aspirante colegio perfecto. Su humor alegre era infeccioso, así que obtenía unas gafas y me unía.



Not so atrocious as you thought:

Esta mañana obtuve unas gafas para sol. No me hubiera molestado si mi amigo Jacob no hubiera obtenido antes las mismas gafas. Era irónico porque esas gafas para sol promueven una universidad por la cual yo sabía que él no podía sentir interés alguno, pero allí estaba él llevando las gafas para sol e incluso un distintivo promocional, aparentando ser el aspirante perfecto a la universidad. Su humor alegre era contagioso, así que obtuve unas gafas y me le uní.

[Shiny]

Thank you, this is very helpful!

[mwtzzz]

fyi can also say "gafas oscuras"

I'll take aleCcowan's translation and translate it back to English:

"This morning I got some dark glasses. I wouldn't have bothered if my friend Jacob had not gotten the same glasses before. It is ironic because those glasses promote a university in which I knew he could not feel any interest, but there he was wearing the dark glasses and furthermore a promotional button, appearing as [to be] the perfect university candidate. His upbeat humor was contagious, so I got some glasses and joined him."

a few notes:
* you only bought the glasses once, so obtuve instead of obtenía. Same for uní versus unía.
* in english we often say "which he is not interested in" but technically this is not correct. we're supposed to say "in which he is not interested" which is more helpful when translating to Spanish because the Spanish follows the correct form.
* "me uní" = "i join myself" which doesn't make sense. you need to include "you yourself is joining with whom" ... "me le uní" = " I joined him" ie. you joined your friend

[Rusty]

@mwtzzz: In English, there is nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition. Here are a couple of links that dispel this myth.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/prepositions/Ending-a-Sentence-with-a-Preposition.html