Sunday, November 27, 2011

An anecdote about translation

Confession time - I haven't yet read the article, but I couldn't resist passing on this little story from the comments beneath it.  I don't care if it's true or not, and I'm sure there are just as many rushed and stressed Irish and Spanish people as there are laid-back English and Americans:

The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, and a Spanish professor were on the radio  discussing translation.  In order to illustrate his point about translations  failing to carry  the finer nuances of words,  the Spanish professor asked,

"For instance, in Irish, is there any word which means the same as "mañana"?


"Indeed," replied Kavanagh,"we have several words in Irish that mean the same as "mañana". None of them, however, carry quite the same sense of urgency!"

2 comments:

Anne said...

I feel sorry I don't speak Spanish ! What does "manana" mean ?

aliqot said...

. . .tomorrow, I'll tell you tomorrow . . .;-) No worries, no hurry.