The Nuances of Poetry Translation

Can a poem be translated without letting its meaning and emotion slip away?

That was the question to be answered on a recent meeting of 15 poets from around the world. They were brought together by the Goethe-Institut for the program “Poets Translating Poets.”

If a poet translates, the final product doesn’t have much in common with the original, and if a professional translator does it, it lacks a soul, requiring that poets and interlinear translators combine forces.

Read more about this topic in an article by Dennis Abrams.

Wow, nice tan you got!

Rioplatofonía

¿Querés una birrita? ¿No tendrás un tomatito para la ensalada? ¿Por qué no nos sentamos allá, al solcito? ¡Qué carita que tenés!

These are all things that you can hear from rioplatófonos. Actually, from Spanish speakers in general. But since this is a common phenomenon in the River Plate area, it is important to talk about it and explain a few things. ¿Solcito? Little sun? ¿Birrita? Little beer? What’s all this about?

Friday… I deserve a cold one!

If you’ve already had a Spanish lesson or two, you will have probably noticed that word endings change all the time and these changes are quite common. Look at the verb “to speak” in the present tense: hablo, hablás, habla, hablamos, etc. You already know that these endings (or suffixes) convey different meanings. In this case, they point to the subject…

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