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00:56 Jan 28, 2015 |
Spanish to English translations [PRO] Marketing - Advertising / Public Relations / Advertising effectiveness | |||||||
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| Selected response from: Charles Davis Spain Local time: 22:08 | ||||||
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Discussion entries: 5 | |
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(and until) ....the myth collapses before their eyes Explanation: The myth of the hero father collapses before their eyes because Dad does not it all; he is not knowledgeable about trigonometry -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2015-01-28 02:46:48 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- "before their eyes" seems to me better than "on them", which is the literal meaning of "les caiga" |
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the myth would be well and truly debunked Explanation: I do like your own suggestion, Eugenio, but what Charles says about the word myth is true. 'Feet of clay' is a very common idiom and expresses loss of status very well. If you want to retain the idea of a myth, you can play around with my suggestion. Another expression you may not know, also from the Bible, is "the scales fell from their eyes". Reference: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/the-sca... Reference: http://list25.com/25-popular-myths-debunked/ |
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- how are the mighty fallen! Explanation: "How are the mighty fallen" Meaning -> The previously powerful are now reduced. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 7 hrs (2015-01-28 08:35:50 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Your own suggestion isn't bad either... Reference: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/188450.html |
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they'll find that their idol has feet of clay Explanation: I really like your own translation and Francois's variant on it, but the trouble is that in English this use of "myth" is not idiomatic. Although the word myth can in principle mean a figure of mythic status, in ordinary speech it is always used to refer to something that people wrongly believe to be true: applied to a person, it would imply that he or she is not a real person but fictional, an invention. And although this text is saying that the heroic image they had of their father comes to seem false to them, referring to him as a myth doesn't express this. It just sounds wrong. As an alternative, I suggest the expression "feet of clay", a set phrase that expresses exactly what the passage is referring to. It comes (like so many expressions) from the Bible: the book of Daniel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feet_of_clay "feet of clay a weakness or hidden flaw in the character of a greatly admired or respected person: He was disillusioned to find that even Lincoln had feet of clay." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feet of clay -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 6 hrs (2015-01-28 07:51:46 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Where Spanish refers to someone as a "mito" (for example "Kate Moss es un mito en el mundo de la moda"), you can quite often call them a "legend" or a "legendary figure" in English, but not a "myth". -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 6 hrs (2015-01-28 07:54:37 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Francois's suggestion, "the myth collapses", is idiomatic, but it changes the meaning; it means that their false idea of their father collapses, but in the Spanish text "mito" refers to the father himself as a hero, not to the falsity of their idea of him. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 day6 hrs (2015-01-29 07:56:40 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Of course, depending on how you do the whole sentence, it could be "until [...] they find that [...]". |
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