Text 1: Franco

ORIGINAL TEXT

“I guess it’s all about forgiving and forgetting,” said Gonzalez’s wife, Mari Carmen Chavez. “I lived in Germany and never saw anything like this for Hitler.”

The civil war led by Franco erupted 70 years ago, and the dictator has been dead for 30 years. But Spain is today confronting his ghost, torn over how to remember the conflict and Franco’s four-decade reign.

HUMAN TRANSLATION

“Supongo que se trata de perdonar y olvidar” dijo la mujer de González Mari Carmen Chavez. “Viví en Alemania y nunca vi nada como esto para Hitler”.

La Guerra civil liderada por Franco estalló hace 70 años y el dictador lleva muerto 30 años. Pero España sigue enfrentándose hoy en día a su fantasma, dividida sobre cómo recordar el conflicto y las cuatro décadas de régimen de Franco.

En algunas ciudades, el Ministerio de Defensa y otras instituciones han quitado las numerosas estatuas de bronce del líder fascista que adornaban las plazas y las fachadas de los edificios, o las han trasladado a localizaciones fuera de la vista del público.

In some cities, the Defence Ministry and other institutions have taken down the larger-than-life bronze statues of the fascist leader that grazed plazas and building fronts, or moved them to lacations out of public view.

REVERSO TRANSLATION

” Adivino es todo sobre el misericordioso y el olvido, ” dijo la esposa de González, Mari Carmen Chavez. ” Yo viví en Alemania y nunca vi nada como esto para Hitler. “

La guerra civil conducida por Franco estalló hace 70 años, y el dictador ha estado muerto durante 30 años. Pero España hoy enfrenta a su fantasma, rasgado como recordar el conflicto y el reinado de cuatro décadas de Franco.

En algunas ciudades, el Ministerio de Defensa y otras instituciones han bajado las estatuas más-grandes-que-vida de bronce del líder fascista que pastó(rozó) plazas y frentes de construcción, o los movió a posiciones(ubicaciones) de la vista(opinión) pública.

ERRORS IN TRANSLATION

We can see some mistakes in the Reverso translation. The sentence “I guess it’s all about forgiving and forgetting” has lost all its meaning for trhee reassons. Firstly the verb has been translated incorrectly, the verb guess in this context means “suponer” not “adivinar“. Secondly,”(…)it’s all about (..)” has been translated in a literal way and what it really wants to say is “(que) se trata” and thridly, the word forgiving has been translated as “misericordioso” instead of “perdonar” o “el perdón” that would be correct too.

We also can see a lot of mistakes in verbs. “torn over how to (…)” has been translated as rasgado but the correct meaning would be “dividida sobre como (…)”. The fourth paragraph is full of errors. The verbs have been translated in an incorrect way. We can see “have taken down” translated as “bajado” instead of “quitado”. The tranlator has translate “graced” literaly as “pastado” but in this case the correct form would be “adornaban”. In the case of “moved” we cannot say it’s wrong but “trasladado” would be better. In this paragraph we also have a composed word, so the translator has translated it word by word. “Larger-than-life” it’s a coloquial term so it could be translated as “numerosas” instead of “mas-grandes-que-vida” and “building fronts” has been translated as “frentes de construcción” instead of “fachadas de edificios”.

Text 2: Jack Palance

Text

WASHINGTON.- El actor estadounidense Jack Palance, ganador de un Oscar por su papel en su último filme, ‘Cowboys de ciudad’, ha muerto por causas naturales a los 87 años en la ciudad de Montecito (California), donde residía, informó su agente. Era un habitual en películas de acción y del Oeste, con directores de la talla de George Stevens, Douglas Sirk o Elia Kazan.

Human Translation

WASHINGTON.- The American film actor Jack Palance, who won an Oscar for his role in his last film, City Slickers, has died of natural causes aged 87 in the city of Montecito (California), where he lived, his spokesman said. It was very common to see him in action films or in westerns, with directors of the stature of George Stevens, Douglas Sirk or Elia Kazan.

Reverso Translation

WASHINGTON. – The American actor Jack Palance, winner of an Oscar for his role in his last movie, ‘ Cowboys of city ‘, has died for natural reasons 87 years in Montecito’s city (California), where he was residing, his agent reported. It was the habitual one in movies of action and of the West, with the directors of the height of George Stevens, Douglas Sirk or Elia Kazan.

Errors

the tranlator has not comitted a lot of errors in this text, to be sincere the traslation is pretty good, but there are a couple of errors which I’m going to mention now.

Ther are some words that have been translated wrong. For example: Agente - Spokeman not agent. Some verbs have been missundertood (residía – the verb life would be better than reside); and some expressions have been translated literally and have no meaning in english ( He was teh habitual one for Era habitual en (…))

Text 3: John Grisham

Texto Original

Pero los errores de la Justicia —que seguirán existiendo incluso pese a los más finos métodos de investigación— no son el único motivo que impulsa el libro de Grisham. El escritor ataca la dejadez y la falta de humanidad en el sistema en su conjunto al tratar de forma literaria y minuciosa el caso Williamson.

Se trata de una tarea encomiable e importante en tanto la palabra de un escritor tan famoso tiene peso. No molesta el saber desde el principio que Williamson es inocente o que mucho después saldrá libre ni el hecho de que se sospecha de inmediato quién es el verdadero asesino.

Traducción Humana

The miscarriages of justice, which will still be around in spite of the finest investigative methods, are not the only factor that drives Grisham’s book. The writer attacks the slovenliness and the lack of humanity in the whole system, dealing with Williamson’s case in a literary and meticulously way. 

 This is a laudable and important task in as much as the words of such a famous writer have influence. Knowing from the beginning that Williamson is innocent or that much later he will be freed doesn’t matter, and nor even the fact that we suspect immediately who is the real murderer.

Traducción de Reverso

But the mistakes of the Justice – that will continue existing even in spite of the thinnest methods of investigation – are not the only motive that stimulates Grisham’s book. The writer attacks the carelessness and the lack(mistake) of humanity in the system in his(her,your) set on having treated as a literary and meticulous form the case Williamson.

It is a question of a task encomiable and important while the word of such a famous writer has weight. It(he,she) is not a nuisance to know from the beginning that Williamson is innocent or that much later will work out free not the fact that there is suspected at once the one who is the real assassin.

El traductor Babylon agrega los contenidos de la Wikipedia

A las funciones habituales del programa de traducción se suman ahora los contenidos de la enciclopedia.

Babylon ha anunciado la incorporación de la Wikipedia a su traductor.

Además de la habitual traducción de la palabra seleccionada, al pinchar en la palabra también se van a recibir los resultados de la Wikipedia en una pequeña ventana emergente.

Esta enciclopedia libre cuenta con más de un millón de artículos.

Con su incorporación, la compañía suma una nueva solución de consulta a su software de traducción, algo que ha hecho con frecuencia en los últimos tiempos.

Signum

Esta página, ofrece cuatro diferentes opciones para utulizar las facilidades que las nuevas tecnológias nos ofrecen con respecto al lenguaje.

Nos permite:

1. Corregir ortografía
2. Buscar sinónimos
3. Conjugar
4. Traducir

A pesar de todas las ventajas que ofrece, la página no acaba de satisfacerme. Mayoritariamente esta llena de publicidad y todas estas utilidades que nos ofrece parecen escondidas detrás de anuncios de otras páginas y demás.

Evidentemente, cada una de las herramientas disponibles funciona bastante bien y es muy practico que todas y cada uan de ellas se encuentren el la misma página. 

Sinónimos.org

Esta página es una de las más sencillas y útiles que he visto en mi vida. No consta de un enramado y complicado número de características que hacen que el usuario se sienta desbordado por tanto afán tecnológico. Es práctica y rápida.

Simplemente cuento con una pequeña parcela en al que introducir la palabra cuyo sinónimo queremos buscar y un pequeño y adorable botón que pulsar para obtener un resultado inmediato.

Una vez elegida nuestra palabra y pulsado el botón, la página nos ofrece una serie de opciones a barajar, y en algunas de ellas, la posibilidad de consusltar su significado.

Puede que para mentes mas aptas a la informática que la mía, esta página pueda resultar simple, pero a mi la verdad es que me ha resultado perfecta y muy util.

Platiquemos Means Let’s Talk !

Platiquemos was prepared specifically to train officers of the Foreign Service and of other United States Government agencies who are involved in foreign affairs and who need to learn to speak Spanish, and has been modified and adapted from its original format to make it applicable to a wider audience and to make it easier to read and use. The original FSI Basic Course in Spanish consists of four volumes with a total of well over 2,000 pages. In order to make the program more manageable, it has been divided it into six levels, with the original text re-formatted for clarity and simplicity and modified to make it more relevant to non-government students; also included is new cultural information and interesting illustrations.

The method is known as guided imitation. It may appear new, but it actually has been used by a considerable number of teachers for many years. As used in this program, it combines elements of the “direct”, “audio-lingual”, “communicative”, and “grammar/translation” methods; other methodologies, such as Total Physical Response can also be used with the program. Its goal is to teach students to speak easily, fluently, with very little accent, and to do this without conscious effort, just as one speaks their own language without conscious effort.

There are two very important aspects of this method. The first is learning a relatively small body of material so well that it requires very little effort to produce it – this is called overlearning. If the student overlearns every dialogue and drill as they go through this program, they will almost certainly make rapid progress in learning the language.

The second aspect is learning to authentically manipulate the sounds, sequences, and patterns of the language. The important implication here is the reality of both the model and the imitation. The model (teacher, recording, etc.) must provide Spanish as people really speak it in actual conversations, and the student must be helped to create an accurate imitation. Above all, the normal tempo of pronunciation must be the classroom standard; slowing down is in this context distortion.

The first two units are focused primarily on pronunciation problems. Drills on other aspects of the language are deliberately postponed because of the importance of developing good pronunciation habits from the very beginning of the course. The importance of pronunciation cannot be over-emphasized; it is the basis of all real fluency. A person will be able to understand anything they can meaningfully say themselves if there is a close similarity between the way they hear it and the way they say it. The more similar, the greater the ease of comprehension.

Systran

SYSTRAN is an automatic translation system that was created by Peter Toma in 1970. Firstly, Toma developed in the Georgetown University a system, that he continued developing during years until he cretaed the final SYSTRAN. He was also the chosen to translate it from English to Russian for the American Army. Later, the NASA proved the system in one of its projects, and although it did not give good results, this experience give more importance to SYSTRAN. After becoming famous, the EC asked to Peter Toma for a demonstration in English/French. After that demo the EC was satisfied. In 1976,SYSTRAN was bought by the Comision and developed later. It was thw bureaucrat Loll Rolling who introduced the automatic translation in the European Comision because he obtained the license for using SYSTRAN. Consequently, the system dictionaries are full of terminology about the Comunity. Now, the CE system has 17 pairs of languages which have been added in a linguistic services local net. Nowadays, translations are processed at a speed of 500,000 words per hour.

At the beginning of the 90s, a French company (Gachot) adquired all the subsidiaries, except the CE’s, and the system became popular in France due to its availability. In 1994 SYSTRAN is offered free in the Compuserve chats, and a year later a new version for Windows was created. But the SYSTRAN great success was in 1997, when after signing an agreement with Internet Alta Vista, the translation service BABELFISH was offered free. Nowadays, SYSTRAN is the most developed translation system (with 35 pairs of available languages) and the most used (1,000,000 translations).

Annie Hall

Woody Allen’s masterpiece will always be Annie Hall. What is most remarkable today about this film is the way Allen presents it. It is a movie about a relationship, the deconstruction of a romance. Allen is considered a director who reflects very well the women personalities. He creates strong, complex and well-defined characters, and Annie Hall is a good example. Allen palys a disguised version fon himself: Alvy Singer, a successful and neurotic television comedian who lives in Manhattan. Annie, a midwestern girl palyed by Diane Keaton, and Alvy meet each other and they start to go out together. Despite all their caution, they connect and we start to see all the important moments of thir relatioship. In fact, the time we can see them completely happy it is ridiculously little.  Allen shows a series of flashbackas about Alvy’s childhood, growing up, quite literally, under a rumbling roller coaster. We can see his school’s class, his classmates and his teachers. “Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym. And of course, those who couldn’t do anything, I think, were assign to our school”. He also shows subtitles showing what the characters are really thinking of one another during a conversation; a cartoon segment where Allen and the tony Roberts character appear with the wicked witch from Snow White, who by the way represent the kind of woman Alvy desires; speeches to the audience, and one of the most famous scenes of the film: a surprise appearence of Marshall McCluhan in a movie theatre lobby to refute a college instructor speaking without sense about McCluhan’s ideas.  Another comis scene, which reflects perfectly the kind of humour Allen always shows in his films, in the one in which Alvy is eating with Annie and her family. Annie’s family and alvy’s family are compaired. His boisterous Jewish family’s dinner table shares a split screen with the one, Hall’s tight-lipped table, Alvy has joined for first time. We can see how Annie’s “Grammy Hall” is showned as a “classic jew-hater” by the way she sees Alvy dressed. Allen makes fun about Jewish people very frecuently in his movies. The third and last scene I am going to talk about is the one in which appears Alvy in the Christopher Walken’s room, as Annie’s psycho brother, and he begin to say “I dream of turning the wheel into the on coming lights.” Alvy interrupts him “I have to get back to the planet earth.” Then we can see the psyco driving, the light of another car and the scary face of Alvy. This movie represents all of the best of Woody Allen. Irreverent, insightful, hilarious and touching, this movie has everything a romance, comedy, and great work of cinema needs.

Woody Allen

Allen Stewart Konisberg, better known as Woody Allen, was born in Brooklyn (New York) on December 1^st 1935. His father was a jeweller but he has to work as waiter and taxi driver during the recession and economic times. Her mother, Netta Cherry, was accountant in a flower-shop. He also has a sister called Letty who, by the way, took in his name the Goya award for Match Point. Woody Allen’s family lived in Flatbush, an upper-middle class neighborhood where people was worried about economic safety. Allen was not a great student, his grades were quite mediocre and he had not a lot of friends. His classmates barely remember him and the other cildren called him Red, because of the colour of his hair, which he did not like so much. Allen was very interested in magic games, cinema, jazz and sports. Although he could have a weak appearence he was a very complet athlet, he played many sports including boxing.  He realized that people considered him a funny guy, so he decided to sent gags to different newspapers when he was 16. Much of Allen’s comic material derives from his Jewish middle-class background. His introduction to show business came a few years later when he was hired to write material for Sid Caesar and Art Carney who wer television comedians. After severalstarts, he began to perform his own comedy routines in which he exagerated his own failures and anxieties. He appeared in and wrote the screenplay for What’s new, Pussy Cat?, the he made his first film Take the money and run, a comedy about an incompetent criminal. The followed films were Bananas, Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask, Sleeper, Love and death and Paly it again, Sam. Allen’s next directed film was the awarded Annie Hall, in which the humour of the protagonist (played by Allen) shows a portrayasl of an urban relationship. Allen has been married two times. His first wife is Harlene Rosen (1956-1962) and the second one is Louise Lasser (1966-1969) who appeared in Take the money and run. He met Diane Keaton before writting the screenplay of Annie Hall, which is based in a part of their relationship, but he never married her. He did not married Mia Farrow too, but he has a son and a doughter with her. In December of 1997, Allen married Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and her second husband Andre Previn, which was very shocking for the American society.