Despite my own attempt, the attempt of a more fluent speaker, and the aid of online translators, I am unable to get a good translation of the following quotation from an interview:
The three dashes I used above represent a blank space in the text that may be a printing error, omitting 10-12 characters.
It says: “Istanbul was Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople…”
roughly.
Either my spanish has gotten really bad or that sentence contains many spelling errors. But here goes:
I have constantly/always thought in the most pleasing sense…I would have had no other field of action.
It seems like an incomplte sentence the last two words seem like the begining of another thought but based on what’s there this is the best I can do.
Eh… yikes… that phrase is full of errors… With what we have, and some guessing, askeptic’s translation can work…
Anything else that may put this quote in context? What were the guestions being asked? Who was the person, WTF was the topic, etc.?
The part that is missing seems to be about something that the person is doing/has done/is involved… and how no other field would have given the person that something.
Interview with an actor. Previous paragraph:
Let me correct something from my previous post: the article says “He pensado” not “He pansado”. Any other errors are the newspaper’s. Not the best copy editing there: the drop cap “N” that begins the article is printed backward!
Ok, what I put above about “something” still stands. The part that gives the most sense to that line is in the part that is missing or you cannot decipher.
Something in the lines of: “I’ve thought in a pleasant way that no other field would’ve given me… ‘whatever the hell is missing’.”
Rough translation:
For this spiky* and charming actor of the second line - “I am,” he admits, without dissembling - his career is “a good job”. […] I have thought constantly upon such a pleasant sentiment.** — I would take no other field of action.
*no idea what this is supposed to mean; maybe it’s supposed to be estimado = valued?
**or: “I have constantly thought about that sentiment, very pleasantly.” This sentence is ungrammatical as quoted, possibly due to typos (among other things, “agradablemete” is missing an n), but if there is a period where you have placed it then that’s probably the gist. I can’t think of anything that could be added at the end of the line that would make much more sense out of it.
I think the part you quoted first is a continuation of the interviewee’s quote, in which he expounds upon how much he likes being an actor.
JRB
Edit: is there a chance of a scan of the document? That might help…
Psst… one can say “en ese sentido”, when one means something like “looking at it that way” or “from that perspective/meaning/sense”.
So that “looking at it that way, (omitted words), no other field would’ve given him (satisfaction, I think).”
OK, so if there’s a missing “ese” then it would be something like:
He pensado constantemente que en ese sentido tan agradablemete. [possibly something short missing] ningún otro campo de acción me hubiera.
Which is still a bit of a mess, even assuming the period is a comma and throwing in some more plausible commas. To me, “tan agradablemente” (so pleasantly) seems to be modifying “He pensado” (I have been thinking), but the helper words aren’t making a coherent subject clause.
No matter how you parse it, the point appears to be that the guy likes being an actor, but a perfectly exact translation would have to wait on a better transcription.
Actually, let me take another stab at it:
Rewriting the quote slightly:
He pensado constantemente que un sentido tan agradable me [te-something] ningún otro campo de acción me hubiera.
= I have always thought that such a pleasant feeling [somethings] me [as] no other field of action would.
Or maybe “un sentido tan agradable mete [something]”, in which case = I have always thought that such a pleasant feeling puts [something] to me [as] no other field of action would.
JRB
My guess is that “second line actor” means “B-list actor” or “second-string actor.”
Of a person, espigado means tall, graceful, slender.
Thanks all for your help. The rest of the article is more readable.