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    Claudio Morán

    Paloma ajena → English translation

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Someone's else dove

Click to see the original lyrics (Spanish)
It appeared in my window
I took her in with my love
It didn't fly, it was timid
I felt like its protector
It was now mine, it was now mine
 
Every day I took care of it
Giving her my love
But one morning
It arose and flew away
It had an owner, an owner
Oh, it flew!
 
You'll suffer, you'll cry
When you recall
Someone else's dove,
I thought you were good
Now you fly away
Leaving me in pain
 
Original lyrics

Paloma ajena

Click to see the original lyrics (Spanish)

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Claudio Morán: Top 3
1.Paloma ajena
2.Dile, cuéntale
3.Pastorcita
Comments
una de dos piedrasuna de dos piedras    Thu, 21/08/2014 - 22:24

Hello, Brian
I was going to do a translation, but you were too quick for me. On the whole a good translation I think.
I have some suggestions:
Verse one
line one
The last word is incomplete; we need "window" rather than "wind".
line three
The English isn't grammatical. In English when we have the past tense in the negative using "did not", we change "flew" to "fly", so the grammatically correct form of the line would be "It didn't fly..." You could say "it flew not", which is grammatically correct, but wholly unidiomatic. Such an expression would never be used in everyday speech and I wouldn't recommend it.

Verse two
Line one. "Everyday" is an English word, but it has a different meaning from what you need here. We would use it in such expressions as "my everyday clothes" or "everyday speech" as I did above. If we are talking about what we do each day, we need a different expression, in fact two words: "Every day". Also remember that the first person subject pronoun is always capitalized: "I" rather than "i".
Line 3 I would suggest that you translate "de pronto" and also use "one" instead of "a". Here's my suggestion for how the line would go into English:
"But (or "when" would be fine too) suddenly one morning". "A morning" sounds very odd here. We would say something like "There is nothing lovelier than a morning in June", but here we are saying what the bird did on a particular morning and in cases like that we would use "one."
I hope my suggestions have been helpful.
Gloria

una de dos piedrasuna de dos piedras    Thu, 21/08/2014 - 23:23

Here is a link to a video clip which shows couples dancing this cumbia. If you are not familiar with the term, look at my comment on the transcription page for a little explanation. You will also find the same link on the transcription page.
Here is the link"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKfqjBxaa3A

una de dos piedrasuna de dos piedras    Sat, 23/08/2014 - 01:56

Hello, Brian
I saw you thanks in the author's comments pane. Thanks for the thanks. I hope you understand that I didn't intend to point out your mistakes to make any kind of negative criticism. My intention was to help you improve your translation. I have never been an English teacher, but I am a native speaker and have been speaking the language for a very long time and I enjoy helping non-native speakers master it.
I know what a lot of linguists apparently do not, that English is a fearsomely difficult language to learn as a second language. They think that English is easy because verb conjugations are a snap compared to other languages and English has no genders. But they overlook the fact that it is horribly difficult in other ways. Just consider orthography for example. I don't know if you are familiar with George Bernard Shaw's hilarious essay on English spelling. He starts out with instructions on how to spell the word fish. First you must have gh as in "enough". You must follow that with o as in "women". Then you put ti as in "nation". And there you have it, fish: ghoti. Then there is the matter of pronunciation. An Egyptian friend of ours was once talking to us about having "duffnuts" for breakfast My husband corrected him very kindly but he was still aggrieved. He said, "but you say enough like that, don't you?" Well, yes you do. And of course there are words like through which is pronounced still a third way. I used to have a professor who made fun of the French language. He said that in French you don't pronounce the last two or three syllables of every word. Who are we to talk? Do you know how to pronounce the word "Worchestershire" as in the name of the sauce? You pronounce it "Wooster". Or how about the family name "Fotheringay" You pronounce it "Fungy"
Please excuse this long dissertation. I just want you to know that I have some idea of what you are up against as a student of English. If you ever feel the need of advice about a translation of Spanish into English or would like a native English speaker to proof-read one, please call upon me. I will be delighted to help if I can.
Yours,
Gloria

una de dos piedrasuna de dos piedras    Sat, 23/08/2014 - 22:50

Just one more little thing, not a criticism but a question. Why didn't you translate "de pronto"?

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