Odd Song Lyrics

[Sarita08]

After posting the question about what type of music everyone likes, I started to think about some of the odd songs that contain Spanish which have gotten popular in the U.S. and abroad. I recently started working with a student on translating lyrics (I'm a Spanish tutor at a university) of these songs for practice, and realized how crazy some of them are. One of the wackiest ones was La Macarena. The modern version of La Cucaracha came in second after that.

Has anybody translated a song from Spanish or another language, and found out the meaning was nothing like you imagined it to be?

[poli]

Yes, I have done this. Much depends on the quality of the lyrics. If they don't make much sense in English, they are not likely to make much sense in other languages. If you try to translate them to fit the music it becomes a real intelletual task. I heard on the radio a jazz vocalist singing in interpretation of the English-language standard "Fever". The translation was direct and awkward sounding because the words did not fit the music. That poor singer! While hearing it I thought if the translator took some liberties and used the word escalofrios instead of fiebre, the song would have flowed much better.

[wrholt]

I haven't tried much poetry/song lyric translation myself, but I did listen in on several sessions of a seminar on translation that often looked at poetry during my time as a university student. (I had a part-time job with the language laboratory, and I was assigned the task of recording all of the meetings of that particular seminar during the whole semester.) The consensus among the seminar presenters and participants was that poetry was perhaps the most challenging type of text to translate effectively from one language to another. The challenge lay in the need to translate the meaning of the text while also retaining an equivalent artistic impact and poetic structure, and most of the time no single choice could satisfy all of the goals at the same time.

[nativespanish]

hi Sarita08

That´s the same with popular sayings. A lot of things have to see with culture and costumes and you can´t translate literally, like:
To butter someone up. What do you mean? you put butter on someone? In spanish we say: hacer la pelota
To be broke. what does it mean? if I translate literally means now you are in 2 pieces. In Spain we say "estar arruinado"
To have a green thumb. What does it mean? are you from Mars? why do you have a green finger? . Here we say: buena mano con las plantas
run out. What? why are you running? Here we say "quedarse sin cambio"
to break a bill. what???????? are you really going to break a bill? why? are you too rich? are you crazy?. Here we say "cambiar un billete"
A shot in the dark.I know it means difficult, but if it´s the first time you listen it you think you are talking to a killer.

[JPablo]

Hey, and “tener que ver” “tiene que ver” in Spanish, literally “have to see” or “has to see”, it actually means “have a connection-relationship” i.e., “have to do” or used more in the negative “has nothing to do with”...

[nativespanish]

Originally Posted by JPablo

Hey, and “tener que ver” “tiene que ver” in Spanish, literally “have to see” or “has to see”, it actually means “have a connection-relationship” i.e., “have to do” or used more in the negative “has nothing to do with”...

Thank you! yes, you´re right, I knew that but I always forget it!

[JPablo]

Yes, you're welcome. It happens to the best of us... (you know, like the "from lost to the river" way of speaking!)

[nativespanish]

Originally Posted by JPablo

Yes, you're welcome. It happens to the best of us... (you know, like the "from lost to the river" way of speaking!)

Yes, but now I think when I traveled outside Europe and I spoke english I´m not sure what I said! oh my god!. Once I sent an email to an australian guy and I wrote...bla bla bla bla.........hogs from Spain! (instead of hugs). Oh my god!. He thought it was funny and all emails he sent me after that he wrote: hugs and hogs from Australia!

[JPablo]

Hah-hah!
That is a good one!

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by wrholt

The challenge lay in the need to translate the meaning of the text while also retaining an equivalent artistic impact and poetic structure, and most of the time no single choice could satisfy all of the goals at the same time.

As a former colleague observed when we were discussing this very problem:

...if you constrain two variables, the third goes out of the window. So you could have it rhyming perfectly, metre fine, but it's about guns rather than flowers.

I've tried to translate a few songs in the past. I only managed to finish one to my satisfaction, and no-one else could make it scan.