Spanish translation from Dora

I was reading through a children's book that my sister received. It is from the Dora cartoon series on the Nickelodeon cable network. On this series, as people in the U.S. know, Dora is a girl of Hispanic descent who, throughout the show, solves puzzles and mysteries, speaking Spanish along with her friends. A very good approach to introduce children in the U.S. to the most significant language in country after English: Spanish. Now, it's become into a marketing tactic, having all kinds of Dora things, from books and backpacks to underwear and piñatas. In despite of that, I have witnessed that kids do learn.
Going back to the book, on the front cover, it says: In English and Spanish! ¡En inglés y en español! I always pay quite close attention to translations, seeing how well they were done, and if any mistakes were made. I do this because with translations, particularly from English to Spanish here in the U.S., mistakes are prone to happen. Sometimes they're very simple, typographical errors being forgiven; but sometimes, these mistakes are quite laughable, as if a machine had been hired to do the translation job. The thing is that a machine is sometimes to do this, with which I have no problem. But the company should care to put someone, that is a real person, to proofread and correct any embarrasements. I will try to bring some of these as I find them.
On this particular book, I found only one thing which would be corrected. It is not so much a grammatical error as it is a matter of choice and interpretation. On one of the pages of the book, the English part reads: This is Backpack. She carries everything I need, and speaks Spanish, just like me!. Underneath it, there is the Spanish translation: Ésta es Mochila. Lleva todo lo que necesito; ¡y habla español, lo mismo que yo!. The last part of this would literally translate to «... and speaks Spanish, the same thing I do!». A more correct translation, closer in context to original text, would be: ... ¡y habla español, igual que yo!, or, ... ¡y habla español, como yo!.

1 comment:

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