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My First Paper in Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6800 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 1 of 6 21 September 2007 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Our first paper was due in our Intro to Spanish Lit. class last week. We won't get them back 'til next week, but I just thought I'd share with you that writing my whole three pages was much harder than I thought it could ever be. I'd never written anything beyond e-mails to friends in Spanish, and now I was quoting text and making allusions and all these things I can barely do in English.
It was scary. I will let you know how it goes. I'm expecting tons of red ink, but I think this will be educational. In other news, it turns out that the kids that I thought were freshman at this junior college are actually sophomores and juniors in HIGH SCHOOL. They're there because they don't offer this level of Spanish in their respective schools. This makes me feel slightly better, only because I was thinking, Wow, 18 year olds are looking younger every year, a sure sign of my aging. On the other hand, this really means that I really am old enough to be their mother. I mean, they're very young mother. Let me get that straight. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6387 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 2 of 6 21 September 2007 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember when I had to write literature essays in Spanish for classes. They were very short and didn't require a lot of analysis, but it's surprising how long they take. I found it was better not to mentally write the essay as you would in English, and then try and translate it to Spanish, but to do everything in Spanish. It makes it much easier, but then I felt that I was using simplistic language and ideas. However, it's better to get it right than to produce lots of convoluted and mangled phrases. Hope you get a good mark.
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| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6800 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 3 of 6 16 October 2007 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh yeah, I can't believe I never updated this. I got my paper back a couple of weeks ago. Despite all the deserved red ink, I got an A-! I think our instructor is a very soft grader, but never mind the grade, the red ink is exactly what I wanted.
We have another paper due this Thursday. I couldn't sleep last night and scribbled out a rough draft in my bed. I'm very stressed about it, because the theme can either be about "realismo mágico" or the role of women, comparing the stories we've read in class. So my thought is to point out that in these stories, the most powerful women possess some kind of magical power, which is sadly ironic because they come from rather machista cultures. The stories perpetrate a fantasy that the only way a woman can surpass her conditions is to possess some kind of magical power, which we all know in real life never happens. Except in the case of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who in the short stories we've read in class, creates complex and strong women, without the aid witch craft. But go figure, he was the only male author we read in the class. Anyway, I think I mean I hope I can get three pages out of this. ¿Cómo se dice "go figure" en castellano? Gracias. Edit: I wrote my rough draft in Spanish. I'm just paraphrasing in English. I can't translate from English to Spanish without butchering it. Edited by CaitO'Ceallaigh on 16 October 2007 at 12:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6561 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 4 of 6 16 October 2007 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I can't think of any exact equivalent in Spanish, but "Que lo entienda quien pueda" should get the point across. Edited by Linguamor on 16 October 2007 at 4:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zorbo Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6192 days ago 7 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, FrenchC2 Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 6 16 October 2007 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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For "go figure", I would say "Vé tú a saber"
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6837 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 6 18 October 2007 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Vete a saber" (or the longer "vete tu a saber") is used a lot in Spain, but the meaning is more along the lines of a rhetorical "who knows?". I don't think it is quite the same as "go figure" though they might overlap in meaning in some specific situations.
I agree that Linguamors phrase will get the meaning across and can't think of anything better right now, this late at night. I'll report back if I think of anything. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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