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Spanish to English: 5th ProZ.com Translation Contest - Entry #3319
Source text - Spanish Admiré de niño la clarividencia del caballo para orientarse en la ida o el regreso y, sea de noche o de día, en la tormenta o bajo el vendaval, admiré el olfato de los perros para volver al sitio del que parten por más que de él se alejen, o el acierto infalible del gato para encontrar el rumbo que tras sus andanzas lo devuelve siempre a su casa. Yo no lo tengo ni cuento tampoco con ese invalorable sentido común a la mayoría de los humanos para orientarse en las calles y las rutas o en parajes nunca vistos tanto como en aquellos en donde apenas se estuvo una única vez. Yo me pierdo irremediablemente cuando me alejo de los circuitos habituales. Privado del don de la ubicación, incapaz de abstraer, de discernir y calcular donde tanta falta hace, los sitios que no frecuento son para mí inalcanzables y a ellos jamás llegaría si alguien no me condujese o no me dejara guiar por los que entienden. Sujeto fatalmente a mi pobre percepción, no sé ir, no sé volver y soy incapaz de remontar mi invalidez. No puedo, no aprendo, no entiendo y nada me dice un plano acerca de mi ubicación. No tengo brújula interna ni don alguno de representación y en cuanto a los puntos cardinales jamás supe dónde están. Todo esto, claro, favorece mi propensión a la inmovilidad. Para no exponerme a vivir perdido, trato de no alejarme de los escenarios familiares. Poco me convoca fuera de mi barrio y trato en lo posible de que mi vida social nunca lo exceda. Nada más ajeno a mí que el espíritu de un expedicionario. Invierto las direcciones y suelo situar a la izquierda lo que estuvo desde siempre a la derecha, y cuando lejos de mi casa dejo el coche estacionado, lo busco al querer volver por el lado en que no está y pierdo así un tiempo enorme resolviendo lo que nunca debió convertirse en problema.
KOVADLOFF, Santiago. “Soliloquio del extraviado” en Una biografía de la lluvia. Emecé ensayo, Buenos Aires (2004).
Translation - English As a child, I admired the sixth sense that horses have in finding their way to a place or back, and I admired the ability of dogs to scent the trail, by day or by night, through storm and gale, back to where they started from, however far they have roamed. Also cats, whose skill in finding the right direction home after their adventures is never-failing. I cannot do that; neither have I got that invaluable sense, possessed by most human beings, for finding my way round streets and paths or places never seen before, or which might have been visited but once. I get hopelessly lost when I stray from my usual haunts. Sadly lacking the gift of knowing where I am, incapable of deducing, discerning and calculating, just when this is so sorely needed, places unknown to me are beyond my grasp, and I could never go there unless driven by somebody else, or I did not let myself be guided by those who know. Bound by fate to my poor powers of perception, I know neither how to get there, nor how to come back, and I am unable to overcome my disability. I cannot do, I cannot learn, I cannot understand and maps are meaningless to me. I have no internal compass, nor any gift for picturing things in my mind, and, as for the cardinal points, I have never known where they are. All of this, of course, increases my propensity to stay put. In order not expose myself to being a perpetual stray, I try not to lose sight of familiar scenes. Few things call me out of my neighbourhood, and, as far as possible, I try to ensure that my social life does not stretch beyond this. An adventurer's spirit could not be further from mine. I mix up directions, and usually say that something is on the left, when it has always been on the right. When leaving the car parked far from home, I look for it wherever it is not to be found, thus losing a huge amount of time over a problem that should never have arisen in the first place.
Spanish to English: 6th ProZ.com Translation Contest - Entry #4352
Source text - Spanish ¿Dónde estás, Lamia, en qué playa, en qué cama, en qué lobby de hotel te alcanzará esta carta que entregaré a un empleado indiferente para que le ponga los sellos y me indique el precio del franqueo sin mirarme, sin más que repetir los gestos de la rutina? Todo es impreciso, posible e improbable: que la leas, que no te llegue, que te llegue y no la leas, entregada a juegos más ceñidos; o que la leas entre dos tragos de vino, entre dos respuestas a esas preguntas que siempre te harán las que viven la indecible fortuna de compartirte en una mesa o una reunión de amigos; sí, un azar de instantes o de humores, el sobre que asoma en tu bolso y que decides abrir porque te aburres, o que hundes entre un peine y una lima de uñas, entre monedas sueltas y pedazos de papel con direcciones o mensajes. Y si la lees, porque no puedo tolerar que no la leas aunque sólo sea para interrumpirla con un gesto de hastío, si la lees hasta aquí, hasta esta palabra aquí que se aferra a tus ojos, que busca guardar tu mirada en lo que sigue, si la lees, Lamia, qué puede importarte lo que quiero decirte, no ya que te amo porque eso lo sabes desde siempre y te da igual y no es noticia, realmente no es noticia para ti allá donde estés amando a otra o solamente mirando el río de mujeres que el viento de la calle acerca a tu mesa y se lleva en lentas bordadas, cediéndote por un instante sus singladuras y sus máscaras de proa, las regatas multicolores que alguna ganará sin saberlo cuando te levantes y la sigas, la vuelvas única en la muchedumbre del atardecer, la abordes en el instante preciso, en el portal exacto donde tu sonrisa, tu pregunta, tu manera de ofrecer la llave de la noche sean exactamente halcón, festín, hartazgo.
Translation - English Where are you, Lamia? On what beach, in which bed or hotel lobby will this letter reach you? This letter that I shall hand to a bored clerk to fix the stamps and tell me how much, without so much as a glance at me, just going through the motions yet again. Nothing is certain, everything is possible and improbable – you will read it, it won't get to you, it will get to you but you won't read it, involved as you are in more fitting games. Or you will read it between two sips of wine, between two answers to the questions that those who have the unutterable good fortune to have a share of you at a table or a meeting of friends, are always asking you. One thing is sure, some trick of time or mood will make you decide to open the envelope sticking out of your bag through boredom, or else stuff it down between a comb and nail file, among the loose change and bits of paper scribbled with addresses and messages. And if you do read it - because I can't stand to think that you won't, even if it is only to break off with a weary gesture - if you read it up to here, up to this word here that rivets your gaze and tries to hold it for what comes next, if you do read it, Lamia, how much does it matter to you what I want to tell you? It's not to say that I love you again, because you have always known that and don't care, that's nothing new - no, it really is nothing new for you, wherever you are, loving another woman, or simply looking at the tide of women washed up to your table by the wind in the street and wafted away again in slow tacks, allowing you a glimpse of their figureheads as they course off in many-coloured regattas that one will unwittingly win when you get up and follow her, singling her out from the evening crowd, coming alongside her at just the precise moment, in exactly the right doorway, where your smile, your question, your way of offering the key to the night are purely those of a hawk, feasting, gorging.
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Years of experience: 33. Registered at ProZ.com: Mar 2001.
Technical Manuals for Machine Tools, Wind generators, Automobiles etc.
Advertising copy, Business and Marketing, Current Affairs,Hotels andTourism,Education, Jewellery,mineralogy and precious metals, Wine.
I work with several agencies in Spain plus for companies, universities and local authorities.
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