Just for fun: translate a poem

[Wessik]

Hello. I think it might be fun to try to translate this poem from english to spanish, and then compare them to see where we went wrong. My spanish is nowhere near good enough, but it would be fun to look at my mistakes. Plus, there is bound to be lots of idiom information. This is more for non-native speakers, though native speakers can join in.

I don't expect translations to be that good. Certainly, I can't translate this.
(The poem was picked at random. No ideas as to the quality of it.)

The poem:

Will to Survive

A man with tides of beard
and a spine bent as a sail
casts a coca-cola can
onto the cavern floor.

Mattresses
that drink in dust mites
push against the walls,
where hue-washed rocks
display prize bulls
and tiny figures gripping
Spears,

Hunters seeking
bovine meat.

And here, that spirit
is preserved in amber
shells upon the cavern floor.

[chileno]

Originally Posted by Wessik

Hello. I think it might be fun to try to translate this poem from english to spanish, and then compare them to see where we went wrong. My spanish is nowhere near good enough, but it would be fun to look at my mistakes. Plus, there is bound to be lots of idiom information. This is more for non-native speakers, though native speakers can join in.

I don't expect translations to be that good. Certainly, I can't translate this.
(The poem was picked at random. No ideas as to the quality of it.)

How about if you translate a Spanish poem to English?

It is even more fun, because you will be able to more or less say what's wrong, and will make you search more for other meaning of a given word in the dictionary. At the end your gain is at least ten fold than doing what you propose, since you don't understand Spanish.

[Wessik]

Great Idea!!! Know any good poets?

[chileno]

Originally Posted by Wessik

Great Idea!!! Know any good poets?

I remember Pedro Calderón de la Barca and his love something...I used to read and liked it a lot when I was in 7th grade.

I would recommend you a novel instead. It has a plot, arguments and lots of descriptions that makes it the ideal, closer to life like situations.

Then you can try your hand with poems.

[Wessik]

Hmm... I think I have the perfect one: "Mario y los Magos: y Otros Relatos". It's been sitting on my shelf for a long time...

[chileno]

Originally Posted by Wessik

Hmm... I think I have the perfect one: "Mario y los Magos: y Otros Relatos". It's been sitting on my shelf for a long time...

Then start. You have to like reading, and that's the first thing student of languages fail to see.

[CrOtALiTo]

Hello I bid you welcome,

I understand your point although I convinced that you can lean more and the enough for you skill, so you can learn little to little and well the less that you need to do is despair yourself when you can learn or read something, you know no one's is perfect and everything going come to you soon.


Truly yours.