# Translating songs

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-songs/179542>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 4, 2003, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-songs/179542 "2003-06-04T08:11:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Devron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ec9cab/32.png) [@Devron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Devron)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2003, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-songs/179542/1 "2003-06-04T08:11:40Z")

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I was thinking about Shakira one day and I was thinking…how does she translate her English songs which might have rhyimg at the ends of a verse or something into spanish where bed and bread might ryhme but comida and pan (woohoo spanish 1!) don’t rhyme? Or the fact that a phrase might be much longer in english than spanish, how does it fit into the beat of a song?

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**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2003, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-songs/179542/2 "2003-06-04T09:42:44Z")

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IANA great fan, but as far as I know, she just changes the lyrics completely. Compare, for instance, [“Suerte”](http://www.lyricsstyle.com/s/shakira/suerte.html) with the English version, [“Whenever, Wherever”](http://www.songlyrics.co.nz/lyrics/s/shakira/whenever.htm). The meaning is similar in some lines and very different in others, especially in the chorus, to preserve the rhyme.

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**Author:** ![stigoftdump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@stigoftdump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stigoftdump)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2003, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/translating-songs/179542/3 "2003-06-04T13:07:45Z")

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Song translation is a nightmare, since conveying meaing in a different language is tricky. I’ve tried doing a translation of some Jacque Brel songs, and it’s nigh on impossible - the current translations don’t really work, and doing a word for word translation loses so much (“I’ll be the shadow of your dog” is great if French - less so in English).

The versions of Jacque Brel songs that Scott Walker recorded in the sixties just changed all the lyrics completly - it seems to be the way to go with song translations, although if they do that, I can’t see the point of translating it at all.