On Tuesday my Interpreting students at University brought to class, as practice material, an interview with the star of Breaking Bad. The text contained the question: What would you do if you had a year to live? It was funny, at the time, to think that it’s just one year since Benita, my German mom, left
With Spanish, a language that is used so widely all over the world, with so many different cultural differences, how do you approach a text?
Somebody makes a pseudo-stupid joke at my son Quique in the street —something I’ll never understand.
Pablo looks at me with his best “what the hell just happened, did you get it?” and our telepathy fails for a moment, and I have to make do with expressing my thoughts with words, and in front of the kids to boot.
[In English, because this is not for the delicate ears of my Spanish kids]
“Let it be. Just an idiot. Motherfucking drunk.” [In Spanish, because… well, you’ll see]
“Mooooom!” Lucía, my 10 year-old, scolds me “that’s a swear word, I HEARD YOU!”
“Darn. So now you do speak English and you understand it when it’s convenient for you. So I won’t be able to swear even in English, now?”
“You could swear in German. But… well, then when I heard you speaking in German I’d know you’re swearing.”
Lost. We’ve lost here.
Should I compile all the Quique and Lucía stories in a single document? This is a serious question for you as my readers. Do tell me in the comments. I’ve also asked my patrons on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/minibego. If you’re late to the party, it’s a system in which people help me pay for my writing costs, and maybe, someday, for my writing itself. Go have a look. It starts with as little as 1$ a month and it really pushes me to write more.
By the way, we’ve reached the next goal we had, to get 2 pretty ebook covers a year:
The next goal is getting two pretty layouts a year:
It feels like the seed of a new, cool thing growing in my life. I’m really looking forward to see what happens next. 🙂
¿Aún no sabes qué votar? Still don’t know what to vote tomorrow? (Spanish local and regional government elections will take place on Sunday)
El próximo día 23 de abril estaré en el Foro Internacional del Español 2.0, en IFEMA (Madrid). Podéis encontrar más información en este enlace: http://www.españolalternativaglobal.com/session/innovacion-empresarial-en-el-sector-de-la-traduccion-buenas-practicas-internacionales/ En mi sesión hablaremos sobre cómo aprender a distinguir las buenas prácticas de los tiburones y los piratas, centrándonos en el usuario. Personalmente, me centraré en las siguientes preguntas:
From a Google+ conversation: Ramón Nogueras: That is completely and absolutely untrue, unless you admit that anyone other than you has control over your feelings. Words have only as much damaging capacity as you want to give them. Ignacio Torres Masdeu: The exchange of power is part of many social contracts. But many times
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