Would you help me to translate my novel? (to English)

Cafe Society
1

I’ve published a novel in Spanish, in Amazon, and I wonder if you guys would help me to translate it to English. The problem is that I can’t afford to buy a professional translation service, so I’ve started to translate it by myself. I can write in English, as you see, but I don’t feel too confident for the narrative and writing in “literary form”.

I’m not proposing to give you all the text to translate it. The way you can help me is:

[ol]
[li]I give you some phrases or small text snippets where I’m not sure if it is correct.[/li][li]You comment or suggest the proper way to express that phrase, along with questions for me, to be sure that you are correctly understanding my meaning.[/li][li]We get a consensual state about that snippet if it is finally written the proper way.[/li][/ol]

At the end of the whole process, I publish the book and the Dopers who have effectively contributed, will be mentioned in the acknowledgments of the published novel and the best contributors will receive a free ebook by me.

Take note that this process can be long and may extend for two or three months, so I want to know if this kind of thread is allowed here in SDMB and if some of you folks are eager to help. Some knowledge of Spanish will be helpful, too.

I’ve chosen the SDMB because I know you since a long time ago and I’m confident that your opinions and suggestions are very valuable.

What do you think?

2

I would be interested in this project.

3

Thanks kayT, I only want to state again that this will be completely voluntary and to be sure that this is not against the rules of SDMB. I will post the first question in some hours, all in this thread.

4

Ok, let’s see if this works.

Let’s start with a question. It’s a fantasy novel. It develops in a city of Mexico, which I intentionally omitted the name. But since some facts had to do with the place, I decided to use all original names, not adapting the names to English. Example: Google translated the name Marcos as Mark, Rodolfo as Rudolph, and so on, but I’m preserving the original names of every character and every place. I supposed this is a good practice, do you agree?

Anyway, the whole plot of the novel (and I will reserve my right to reveal it) may take place in any city of the occidental world, it’s not Mexican culture-related.

Please tell me what do you think about this.

5

Opinion here: that all sounds perfectly good! I like the subtlety of not naming the city, and I like the integrity of keeping the names Marcos and Rodolfo.

What this does is give a flavor, a connotation, without actually being concrete. That’s good literature! You can give hints toward establishing Mexican culture, but keep them as subtle as you want.

For example, if the characters drive down Hidalgo Street, that could be anywhere in Latin America and great big swaths of the U.S., too.

6

Thanks, Trinopus. :slight_smile:

Anyway, I refer to Mexico in it a couple of times, but I like the idea of the subtlety to not being so specific about the Mexican culture. My intention is that my novel could be read in any country of the civilized world without deepening in the local customs (my agenda is not to promote my country), but some realistic background is required. After all, the story is fantasy with a little bit of social satire.

7

Not anglicizing the proper nouns is right way to go.

8

Thanks to you too, Transcephalic.

9

I’ll start with the snippets (I will number them to identify them in responses):

1)"Her father did not suffer the traditional paternal zeal towards his only daughter"

Original: “Su padre no padecía el tradicional celo paterno hacia su única hija”.

I’m not sure if “paternal zeal” is the correct expression. I mean when a father (especially a father, the male, is jealous over his daughter’s boyfriend or his daughter’s sex life).

2) "But thank God they were not in other country, where they easily take you to trial if by any small cause they suppose - and it seemed that they longed to suppose it - that your creature does not develop in an optimal environment and they give it to a marriage that it has nothing to do with your affection, or any person claiming power."

Original: “Pero gracias a Dios no estaban en otro país, donde fácilmente te llevan a juicio si por cualquier pequeñísima causa suponen —y tal parecía que ansiaban suponerlo— que tu criatura no se desarrolla en un ambiente óptimo y se la dan a un matrimonio que nada tiene que ver con su cariño, o a cualquier persona que reclame la potestad.”

This means that here in Mexico is not so easy to take a child from a single parent -at least in the nineties, when the novel takes place- if they think he or she is not taking good care of him/her. So, I don’t know if “they (the government) take you to trial” is correct, or should I refer to the “social services”? What is the correct form to refer to that? And “any person claiming power” is correct? “Claiming power” is what Google translated “reclamar la potestad” (the parent with the legal right to bear the child).

Of course with “other country”, I mean the USA, where children are very protected.
The character who refers this to is the the main character, Wendy, who in her childhood was in danger to be claimed by a toxic great-aunt.

10

In U.S. English, that would be “in another country.” I’m not sure about “creature.” That doesn’t feel like the right word. Perhaps “being” or “person” or perhaps “personality.”

Also, delete the “it” from “a marriage that it has nothing to do with your affection.”

I’m not good enough to help you with an entire book, but if you keep posting snippets here, you’ll find lots of people with opinions to share. I hope that is what you want!

11

“in another country”: done.

In Spanish and/or in Mexico, we use to say “creature” to our children, any age. So, what’s a synonym in English? Child, infant, baby?

Done.

This is exactly what I want. As long as there are some of you interested in helping me, I’ll keep posting. I’m very excited to have this aid from you. I’m also assisting the translation with Google Translate and Grammarly, they do a good job, but the human opinion is priceless. And fun, I hope you will take it so.

12

Child, I think. “Infant” and “baby” refer to very, very young children, but “child” can refer to an offspring of nearly any age. (You sometimes find 75-year old people speaking of their 55-year old sons and daughters as their children!)

This is definitely fun; thank you for sharing this with us! When it is finished, I hope to see it in print or as an e-book. I love “urban fantasy” and that’s what this sounds like.

13

Of course it will be. I promise to mention my supporters (the real contributors) in the “translation acknowledgments”. We later discuss if, because of anonymity, should I put the (i. e.) From SDMB: Trinopus, Trancephalic, kayT… Or the real names. I will surely respect your privacy if you want.

14

“Her father did not suffer from traditional paternal jealousy towards his only daughter.”

(Zeal is not quite right.)

“But thank God they were not in some other country[sup]*[/sup], where they might easily take you to court for any trifle they could imagine – and, indeed, it seemed their imaginations were active – …”

[sub][sup]*[/sup]“another” as noted by another poster also works[/sub]

Let me try something different: “But thank God they were not in a country where anyone with legal standing might challenge your guardianship for any small trifle they could imagine. And indeed it seemed their imaginations were active.”

It’s hard to tell from a lack of context, but I’d recommend that you check the antecedents to “they/their”. I think if you are not careful the reader might not be able to track it.

Too, it seems that you are mixing a level of formality with a level of informality. That is, you sentence structure is formal and complex. I think that this can work for a sort of ironic humor. But mixing this with “you” seems a tad off. This is not a strong recommendation, but you might consider “upping” this by using “one” rather than “you” as in “take one to court” or “one’s daughter”, etc. However, this might be a bit much.

15

Thanks Tinker Grey, I will implement the suggestions.

More:

3) “Are you sure your dad will lend us the quinta, Wendy?” He asked as he returned to the room and prepared his clothes.

The “quinta” is, according to Google, a “country house”, a large house in the country, typically the home of a wealthy or aristocratic family. It’s the same in my novel and is especially a big scenery of it: “La Quinta Luz María”.

I don’t know if I had to translate it literally that way, as “quinta” for the proper reading of the english version, like “The Quinta Luz María was fifteen miles of the city” but using the “country house” when referring to it: “Are you sure your dad will lend us the country house?”.

I used the word “lend” because Wendy’s father is going to allow them to use the house for a party.

4) “Okay, so there’s only one fly prowling around in the soup.”

The fly prowling around the soup is a spanish expression used to mean that there is only a little inconvenient when everything else is going okay. (“No, don’t worry. If my dad said yes, he will fulfill.” “Okay, so there’s only one fly prowling around in the soup.”). What would be the english equivalent?".

5) Wendy looked up, annoyed. “And give it with that.”

This was a Google literal translation. Here goes a colloquial expression that means: “And again with the same thing!” (annoying). English equivalent? What would you write there?

16

  1. If the term “quinta” is defined (or made clear by context) earlier in the book, then it’s good to use. Otherwise maybe explain it here, or use “country house”. “Lend” seems fine.

  2. “Fly in the soup” is a little more than a little inconvenient, for me anyway. Where I come from people sometimes say “fly in the ointment”, which is less unappetizing than in the soup. I don’t know if that’s universal or a regionalism, though.

  3. “Here we go again” might work. Or “Not that again”? Or your version “Again with the same thing” is ok but maybe a bit stilted?

17

Julius, if you want to send me a bigger chunk, I may be able to help. Me speakee Spanish from Spain but that shouldn’t be a problem with 99% of your book. My email is in my profile.

I agree with kayT about English flies liking ointments instead of soup. AFAIK it’s a widespread expression, not a regionalism.

For the last sentence, “here we go again!” or, since she actually wants him to stop it “and drop that already!”

18

Interesting experiment. I’ll toss in my thoughts about what has been posted.

  1. Regarding “Her father did not suffer the traditional paternal zeal towards his only daughter”, I would think that the word “adoration” would be better than “zeal” (or even “jealousy”, as was proposed by Tinker Grey. However, it would all depend on context, which is true of any translation.

What are the father/daughter dynamics that you are trying to convey?

For example, simply reading the original line leads me to the following questions:

[ol]
[li] The father is not very proud of his only daughter and doesn’t brag about her to his peers?[/li][li] The father does not care how many unqualified males are seeking to court his daughter?[/li][/ol]
2. Regarding “Okay, so there’s only one fly prowling around in the soup”, generally speaking, flies don’t “prowl”. They fly or they crawl. In soup, they would be swimming. The term “prowl” has a completely different connotation than “crawl”.

Here is the definition from dictionary.com:
verb (used without object)
1.
to rove or go about stealthily, as in search of prey, something to steal, etc.
verb (used with object)
2.
to rove over or through in search of what may be found:
The cat prowled the alleys in search of food.

Again, generally speaking, a fly in a bowl of soup doesn’t “rove about stealthily”. Instead, it flaps its wings, buzzes, swims, or drowns.

I’m not sure that replacing “soup” with “ointment” solves the problem. Yes, the phrase, “fly in the ointment” is a valid English idiom, but, again, without a whole lot of context, doesn’t seem like it fits here.

Is the fly that is prowling around the soup supposed to represent a male that is interested in the daughter? If so, then describing the action with a tomcat would seem more easily understood: “Okay, so there’s only one tomcat prowling through my yard”.

This is all just my thoughts, and I’m sure others will have completely different thoughts.

19

Lowercase “he” instead of capitalized “He.” In my opinion “mansion” would work, and “country house” works just fine.

This works just fine as it is.

Tricky, because so much depends on context, but in American English, you could write, “What? Again?” or “That’s been done already” or “Not again” or something like that. I’m not really sure of the exact sense of what she is saying.

20

Julius TheG, regarding the snippet about the “traditional paternal zeal”, I see that I completely missed/didn’t read the explanation you gave in post #9 regarding being jealous of his daughter’s boyfriend or sex life. I apologize if my explanation seemed a little “off”.

However, I think there is a fair amount of confusion about the meaning of what you call “jealousy” in your explanation.

Although the actual definition of “jealous” and its derivatives certainly mean “guarding” (as a father would do over his daughter’s virginity), I think that the word has drifted more toward the “envy” meaning over recent years. In that sense, hearing that “the father is jealous about his daughter’s boyfriend or his daughter’s sex life” is really creepy.

In modern usage, this would seem to imply that the father is envious of his daughter’s boyfriend (i.e.: that the boyfriend is lucky to be having sex with the man’s daughter) or that he is envious that his daughter is getting more sex than he (himself) is. I am pretty sure that this is not quite the meaning you are intending to convey.

If you are trying to convey that the father was not really all that concerned about his daughter’s dating rituals, it might be clearer if the sentence said, “Her father was not overly-protective …”.