Hey, like I said, that was my first pass Shakira’s lyrics tend to be like Pterry’s novels: lots of sentences which play with the multiple meanings of words. In that particular example, both razón and doblar have multiple meanings, and any combination you care to pick up makes sense.
I think part of the reason I favor the “double” meaning of doblar over “fold” is that Shakira, while extremely flexible, doesn’t stick me as someone who’ll turn herself into pretzels for many people. If she was, the sharks would have eaten her years ago, when she was still an itty-bitty sardine. No idea whether I’m projecting or not
A brief defense of your Prof. - you aren’t the only one in the class (I assume!), and even though you are smart enough to understand that you can’t just substitute the equivalent words in Spanish and get the correct translation, others in your class may not get that concept. She needs to focus everyone’s studies, not just yours.
That being said, I share your fascination. To me, there’s something about the way in which a different language uses an idiomatic expression that conveys something about their worldview.
Have you talked to the prof. about how that is something which interests you? It may help both of you. (It’s not very fun to be teaching a class when one of the students asks an interesting question that could hijack the discussion - do you satisfy the legitimate curiousity of that student when the rest of the class may not be ready for the full answer? Tough call, even for an experienced prof.) Anyway, hoping you can resolve it, as you sound like a highly motivated and interested student of the language.
Huh, I had time to look it up and you’re right (not that I was doubting you with the conviction with which you posted), but I could have sworn there was some common French word that changed meaning depending on the presence or lack or a circonflex.
My Thai GF speaks about three Spanish words, and tonto is one of them. It’s amazing the whole range of meaning she can convey by simply changing the intonation… :o
As for the “Sólo tu doblas mi razón” translation, it’s not literal and assumes an artistic license, but I think in this case the meaning rather than a direct translation would be “only you can subdue (bend/twist/overtake) my will”.
You might be thinking of ou/où - the first means ‘or’, the second means ‘where’. They sound exactly the same; it’s only spelling and context which defines them. A completely untranslatable scene in Beaumarchais’ ‘Le Marriage de Figaro’ features Bartolo and Figaro arguing back and forth over which of the two words is written in the loan contract between Figaro and Marcelline.
F: Ou.
B: Où.
F: Ou!
B: Où!
F: Ou!!
B: Où!!
This extreme fault in the Spanish language has always driven me crazy. The closest equivalent I’ve found is “bobo/a,” which also means “dumb,” but in a very mild way.
Also, at least in Castilian Spanish, there doesn’t seem to be a good word to equal the English “cute.” Dictionaries always translate cute as “mono,” but nobody says that. “Lindo” is the word that seems to be used in the closest context. When I would tell funny stories about my dogs, my roommate would say, “Que lindo!”
Ask a philosophy or classics student, someone who’s read their Plato, to define the ancient Greek words ‘logos’ and ‘arete’.
You should probably only do this if you want to sit and listen to someone talk on and on and on about things that really only philosophy and classics students and their professors care about.
Or maybe du and dû. The first one is an article, meaning “of the”, the second one is the past participle of devoir, basically “owe” or “have to”. I believe dû is written with an accent specifically in order not to confuse it with the article, but I don’t see how they could be confused since they don’t have at all the same role in a sentence.
I’d also like to see a sentence where both ou and où could be used, since they’re also two words with very different functions. I’m going to see Le Mariage de Figaro this year, so I’ll try to keep this in mind.
There are many individual words that cannot be translated. When I was in Japan talking to other English speakers they used the word ‘genki’ in English because there is no good translation. I think the best way to translate from one language to another is to think of the thought that precedes the sentence.
You want to go to the park with someone. To my son who is 18 months I can use just the Cambodian word ‘tou’ which means ‘to go’. In English you can say ‘You want to go to the park?’ or ‘Do you want to go to the park?’ In Japanese you can say ‘Koen e iku ?’
The people I know who say “lindo” are all Latin American and everybody from Spain I know says “mono” or, especially, “mona,” a lot. Mind you, I’ve heard Americans call a car “cute,” while the only time I’d call a car “mono” is a New Beetle, in which case it’s sarcastic. I’m talking mostly NE Spain: Euskadi, Rioja, Navarra, Aragon, Catalonia, with a dose of Madrid thrown in. I hear it on Madrid-based TV a lot, too. Again, the only time I hear “lindo” on TV it’s in culebrones.
For a story about your dog, I might say “qué mono” (if the dog is male), “qué mona” (if female) or “qué monada” (if I don’t know the gender and have no idea whether you’d take offense if I mistake it; monada can only refer to an object, in this case the story itself).
And why is it an “extreme fault” of my language that you don’t know it well? Either I’m being wooshed or you have a serious problem there.
Shakira’s lyrics tend to be like Pterry’s novels: lots of sentences which play with the multiple meanings of words. In that particular example, both razón and doblar have multiple meanings, and any combination you care to pick up makes sense.
