It Could Be Worse
Ana.Logica| 1. | La revolución sexual |
| 2. | Podría Ser Peor |
| 3. | El Momento Más Feliz |
| 1. | poner en marcha |
MercurioHirviendo
Wed, 08/08/2018 - 06:55
Very humble suggestion: Referring to alarm clocks is definitely the literal translation and the dictionary definition of "despertador". The current English very definitely sounds literal, whereas the original Spanish sounds figurative (to me). One reason is that "despertador" is cognate with "despertar" (to wake up, to arouse, to enliven, and "el despertar" is also a noun meaning "awakening"), whereas the English "alarm clock" has "alarm" in it (which sounds alarming and loud, not lively nor awake) and "clock" (which is not necessarily involved in Spanish - "un despertador" could be a human who wakes you up very gently and in a non-alarming way).
Basically, as a native English speaker, mentioning "alarm clock" really makes me think of alarm clocks. Specifically. Not even a telephone alarm. Not a wristwatch. It's an alarm clock.
I am not telepathic with the songwriter(s), and I am not a native Spanish speaker, but at the very least I think they wanted ambiguity about whether a real alarm clock was involved.
magicmulder
Wed, 08/08/2018 - 07:15
Maybe something like "Our favourite wake-up call" (which also has a figurative meaning)?
MercurioHirviendo
Wed, 08/08/2018 - 07:11
One more very humble suggestion, but what you already have is 100% correct and thank you:
Spanish:
"Que los restos y desechos de la eternidad"
Current English:
"Than the wreckage and waste of eternity" (100% correct, definitely)
I would use near-synonyms that suggest more similar senses in English:
Suggested English:
"Than the leftovers and rejects of eternity"
Both translations are equally correct without context. Also, I would not mix them, I would not write "the wreckage and rejects of eternity", for instance.
The two words definitely refer to "trash" or "rubbish" (in Spanish), but the English words I have suggested can refer to either humans or non-humans. In contrast, humans cannot be "wreckage".
The Spanish could refer to either smashed cars or demoralized and marginalized humans. The current English can ONLY refer to smashed cars, not humans. My suggested English (leftovers and rejects) can refer to humans or old cars or food or trash in general. The Spanish could also be quite metaphorical, especially with "de la eternidad", so it might be ideas or opportunities or something else. The current English is definitely "something that can fit inside a dumpster". Things that fit inside dumpsters are not usually associated with "eternity" and poetic language, in English, in my very humble opinion. "Wreckage" sounds mundane, just put it in a dumpster. "The leftovers and rejects of eternity" sounds like a serious existential problem. One is very easy to clean up and fix, the other is likely impossible to fix.
Suggestion: Translate "el temporal" as "the tempest" instead of "the storm". They are obviously both correct. I like "the tempest" for several reasons:
(1) The English word "tempest" is cognate with the Spanish word "temporal" of the same meaning.
(2) The Spanish word "el temporal" in the sense of "the storm" is far less common than the English word "the storm" or the Spanish word "la tormenta". I checked a Spanish corpus (it is Spain-heavy, sadly) to confirm my intuition that "la tormenta" is far more common in this meaning. As for English, this is a guess based on being a native speaker and it seems super obvious that "the storm" is more common, but most native speakers should know what a "tempest" is as well.
(3) The English word "tempest" and the Spanish word "temporal" are reminiscent of the English word "temper" (like losing your temper, getting angry) and the Spanish word "templado" (calm, not angry). These words are all cognates, as is the English word "to temper", as in to harden steel by heating it up and cooling it slowly in a controlled way.
As an aside, "el tiempo" (weather) and "el tiempo" (time) are cognates, the English word "time" is a cognate, and the English word "temporary" is a cognate and a good translation for the sense of "temporal" (Spanish, adjective) which is more common than the sense used here (Spanish, noun, meaning storm or tempest). The English word "tempest" is also a cognate will all of these words, the English word "storm" is not at all.
Another aside: Both English and Spanish consider the following meanings to be sets of opposites:
Calm vs. Storm (opposites)
Calm vs. Angry (opposites)
Note that "calm" has popular cognates in both senses (weather and mood) in both languages, whereas "storm" and "angry" do not have semantically related cognates in Spanish, unless I am mistaken.