Talk:Joaquín Torres García/Translation

Translating a paragraph

Im going to use the talk page to translate a paragraph and when im finished ill transfer it to the actual article: Tras una difícil infancia por los vaivenes económicos y domiciliarios de su familia, y una formación principalmente autodidacta, en 1890 Torres García se fijó como objetivo el emigrar a fin de formarse como pintor, pues llegó a la conclusión de que esa formación no la había de recibir correctamente en la capital de Uruguay. Así pues, junto a toda su familia decidió viajar a Europa en junio de 1891, contando con diecisiete años. La familia del padre los llevó directamente a Mataró. Allí Torres García empezó a asistir de día a una academia local, en la que aprendió las bases del oficio, y de noche a clases de dibujo en una escuela nocturna de Artes y Oficios. En 1892, la familia decidió afincarse en Barcelona, con ello, Torres García pudo ingresar en la Escuela de Bellas Artes de Barcelona.

becomes: After a difficult childhood due to the economic ups and downs and his family's domiciliarios, and a formación principalmente autodidacta, in 1890 Torres García he decided at last to become a painter and came to the conclusion that that decision blah blah blah

I'm starting to get lost in the translation so feel free to make changes to what i've done so far or complete it if you can 212.120.248.128 (talk) 15:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Oficio

I'm not sure what to do with oficio in this article (as in him studying las bases del oficio). Normally, I'd go for "trade", but I don't usually think of being an artist as a "trade". Any thoughts? - Jmabel | Talk 00:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that someone has opted for "craft", a good choice. - Jmabel | Talk 06:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Planella

Does anyone know the identity of "Planella" with whom he estanlished a friendship? http://senselimits.org/ppcc/planas.htm has a good listing of prominent Catalans by this name. Presumably, going by dates and profession one of the following:

• Planella i Rodríguez, Joan (Barcelona, 1850 – 1910) Pintor
• Planella i Roure, Alexandre (Barcelona, 1866 – 1900) Pintor

Anyway, I have no good guess between the two. - Jmabel | Talk 00:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, http://www.opacmeiga.rbgalicia.org/DetalleRexistro.aspx?CodigoBiblioteca=CMB001&Rexistro=3461&Formato=Etiquetas mentions a "PLANELLA COXELLO, Gabriel" - Jmabel | Talk 00:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"la franja diurna"

Any suggestions for translating "la franja diurna"? I'd take it in other contexts as "the twilight hours", but here that doesn't seem quite the right wording. The article seems to be saying that he fit classes at Academia Baixas before his night classes at the Escuela de Bellas Artes; I'm not sure why franja was chosen. Were these early-evening classes? This is one of those times when the lack of inline citations to get back toward a source is a pain. - Jmabel | Talk 06:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• The way I understand it, when refering to timetables, a franja is a period of time during the day that is set aside for a particular activity for every day of the week. The university I teach at has a franja during the 4th period (12:40 - 14:00) of each day where only elective courses may be programmed. If you saw the timetable for the week drawn up in five columns — one for each day — you would see a "strip" (the literal translation of franja) going across the sheet to represent the elective classes. Now, if we go back to the text, I think the use of the word franja is a bit pointles because it seems to be refering to a very broad "strip" that covers all daytime hours, in contrast to the night-time classes. I don't think it's necessary to worry about the term and I think its enough to mention him studying during the day. GringoInChile (talk) 13:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Biography

I think the biography section needs to be broken up into sub-sections because it is very long and looks cluttered. I would attemt it myself but I think it should be done by someone who knows the subject a lot better than me. GringoInChile (talk) 13:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

State of this

In the main body of the article, I think that we have all of the low-hanging fruit. The remaining untranslated phrases (all of which are now in italics and colored red) are tricky one way or another, at least in my view. Some of them we may not need to render anything like literally. For example, I certainly understand what it means to say he received un gran homenaje, but the literal translation "a great homage" doesn't have the sense of some kind of formal tribute conveyed by the Spanish: I wish we knew whether they were talking about a Festschrift, or a banquet, or just testimomial letters.

Further, some phrases that were accurately translated (e.g. "through the prism of complementarity with tradition") sound pretty bloated in English. I've taken on many of these already; that one happens to be in a sentence part of which is still untranslated, so I've left it alone for the moment.

Also, we need to decide what to translate in the list of works, etc. We probably want to keep Spanish originals and add English translations of titles, but all of that óleo sobre tela stuff should simply be translated. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, there are a few tidbits in the current English article that we should rescue. For example, he published quite early on in Pél i Ploma, a very important magazine in the history of Catalan art [jeez, we don't have an article on it, we don't even seem to have other mentions of it!] and for his Salon de refusés the current article lacks "…we are four artists around a Master…" - Jmabel | Talk 03:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with the translations that have now been done on some of these.

• "…que marcó gran parte [of his artistic and personal trajectory]" ==> "which marked part". Seemed to me that "gran" is much of the point. Also, I'm not sure "marked" is really the felicitous word in English. "…which marked part of his artistic and personal trajectory" just doesn't feel native to me.

• Agree with the "great" part, i forgot it. About the "marked" part. Do you have any proposal, maybe "affected", or "became a milestone for", or something of the like? other suggestions?--Wafry (talk) 15:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, I might drop the whole phrase about "marking his artistic and personal trajectory". After all, we already say that the project was the largest and most important of his life. Frankly, "artistic and personal trajectory" strikes me as the type of florid writing one often finds in the Romance languages, which always sounds overblown to me in English. - Jmabel | Talk 01:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• "…que debía realizarse siguiendo las directrices ideológicas marcadas por…" ==> "…which had to be made following the ideological guidelines stated by…" "Ideological guidelines" is good, but maybe "…which had to be made…" would better be rendered as something like "…which he was expected to execute in accord with…" Also, I think "laid out" would be better than "stated".

• Ok with both--Wafry (talk) 15:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• "valedor teórico" ==> "main protector". Hmm. "Protector" is good, but this completely loses any sense of "teórico". - Jmabel | Talk 06:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• I changed principal for main, and I omitted teórico but I'm not very sure how to translate it (theoric protector? theoretical protector? protector of his theories? protector of his arts? ideological protector?). --Wafry (talk) 15:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Good question. I didn't touch the phrase originally precisely because I wasn't sure whether it meant, in effect, "protector of his theories", "theoretically his protector", "the theoretician of whom he had been a protégé" or (closely related to the last), "the authority under whom he had up to this point had the ambit to develop his theories." This is the sort of thing where I would hope a native speaker would weigh in. I suspect that it may be ambiguous in the original. "Valedor" here does seem to me to be the inverse of protégé; there may be a better English word for that than "protector" but it isn't leaping to mind for me. - Jmabel | Talk 18:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Well, I'm Spanish, although that may not help a lot. Valedor Teórico is not an expression you hear often at all (check google: only 2 different entries). Anyway, I'm pretty sure what it means is "Defender of a theory", in this case Torres's. Checking wordreference.com valedor translates as protector or defender. Also looking the Merrian Webster dictionary I have found another possible word: "abettor or abetter". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wafry (talk • contribs) 18:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Hmm. Doesn't valedor suggest that the person is more powerful than Torres? "Abettor" tends to suggest the opposite, or at most a peer. - Jmabel | Talk 01:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

"Last Days" Section

I don't think it makes any sense to entitle a section "Last Days" when the time period mentioned spans 15 years -- a more appropriate title is needed instead of a direct translation from the spanish version of this article.151.204.157.58 (talk) 01:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)