English Translation:

Cat: Do you have a cat?

Girl: No.

Cat: Now you have one!

Girl: And that’s how I got a cat.

  • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The translation is precise, but for some reason it doesn’t carry the same degree of humor. I think it may have to do with the way Spanish handles the indefinite article “a cat.”

    Edit: ok, that might be part of it, but there’s also the way he tells her that she now has a cat. The word-for-word translation differs slightly in meaning from the figurative translation. There’s something that’s lost, maybe a degree of finality?

    • Vincent@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      I think “You do now.” probably works better than “Now you have one!” It feels more threatening.

      (Disclaimer: I’m a native speaker or neither English nor Spanish.)

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      one of my friends loves to say “oh my gatos!” instead of “oh my god”

      and when you hear that coming from this 6’2 tatoo’d and dreadlocked brute, it always makes me giggle

    • mrfriki@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m Spaniard and it sounds weird in Spanish, so much that I thought it was some auto translation bot. The humor is still there and it’s easy to get eve it is sounds weird.

      • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Alright, now I’m curious. I was responding from the perspective of an English speaker who reads and understands Spanish.

        What do you find strange in the Spanish version? How would you express these lines more naturally?

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I know just enough Spanish to read the whole joke before reading the translation. I agree, going for fewer shorter words makes it concise and funnier.

      I make the same point to weaboos that insist on literal translation from Japanese. Sometimes just rewriting a phrase is a better option to carry the literary quality.

    • Chiwiu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I would have translated better without the “a” to make it wrong and same level of absurd.

      • Do you have cat?
      • No
      • Now you do
      • And that’s how I got cat