English Translations

[cliff]

Firstly I would like to congratulate Marina and Ben on their podcasts. I am new to Spanish, studying now for 6 months, and find the Podcasts extremely helpful when working on my pronunciation and comprehension. Thanks for all your hard work and effort in keeping the podcasts going.

As a beginner I find the transcription very helpful, but to be honest I do not understand much of what is being discussed. I was wondering if you have considered an English translation of the podcasts, to help us beginners get more from the conversations and learn new vocabulary. This could be at an additional cost to cover the extra translation fees.

I wonder if anyone else is interested too.

[richardksa]

I thought about that and was on the verge of posting, when a few days ago Ceasar posted on the blog a very long, rather coloquial, post, which took me most of the day to translate. (On and off, in between the work I'm paid to do!!!) I learnt an awful lot of Spanish that day. More than if there had been an English translation to crib from. If learning languages has taught me anything, apart from how to ask for a cold beer(!), it is that you have to work at it. Oh, and it don't come easy when you're over fifty!!!!:D

[cubix]

I will second Richard, english translations are great for understanding what is said, but you do not learn any vocabulary or grammar structure(this is what I get out of the podcasts the most) It is great to just listen to them speak and hear how to form sentences and not sound like a buffon(like I do sometimes when i try to speak spanish)

When you are forced to get out the dictionary and look up the word, you will most likely not forget the word for a long while...


Greg

[cliff]

Good points, there is no substitute for hard work. I do plenty of translation excersises for homework, and your right its a great way to learn. But there are times when I just want to relax, listen and absorb without the constant backwards and forwards of using a dictionary - this is just another way to immerse myself in the language, especially at night when my brain is already tired from work. I am only a beginner and the conversations are quite advanced for my level, so trying to translate them myself would not only be very time consuming but there is a great possibility I will make many errors and not know it. An official English translation would allow me to get a lot more from the conversations and I would have the confidence to know that it was accurate and I was learning correctly.

[richardksa]

Cliff,

I see your point. Not all of us have the time, or the inclination after a busy day, to sit and translate. I don't have a life and do have the time, but that's another story. After less than a year of studying the language I am proud that I can read it quite well and this is probably down to frequent references to the dictionary while translating - and the words usually stick after the third or forth time of looking them up. It's the listening skills that I have a problem with. Perhaps my ears are too old!!

Just an idea. Try copy pasting the transcriptsinto babelfish or similar. The result will not be precisely correct, but should give you the gist of what you are listening to. (Don't know if that would infringe any copyright - Ben?)

[Ben]

Just an idea. Try copy pasting the transcriptsinto babelfish or similar. The result will not be precisely correct, but should give you the gist of what you are listening to. (Don't know if that would infringe any copyright - Ben?)
Sounds OK, as long as you keep the results to yourself;) Although I can't vouch for the accuracy of those services - you will end up with some pretty wierd sentences I imagine!

From our point of view the translation isn't really feasible at the moment, it would either take too much of my time or be too costly to get done elsewhere. I second the idea that it is best to struggle through with a dictionary, you really do learn more in the long-run that way.

On the other hand, you don't need to understand every word in order to improve. I often say to people who have recently arrived in Spain that it is good enough just to try to pick out the topics of conversation as you listen to the locals chatting away - you'll be surprised how your ear begins to adapt if you just concentrate on this to begin with, then slowly the listening itself gets less exhausting, and the vocab begins to trickle through... or you begin to look up those few phrases you really want to know.

Do remember also that these podcasts are pretty high level, and if you are still listening then you are doing very well! So, to kind of summarise the above, if you find the podcasts to be above your level, listen for gist first, just trying to identify the topics of conversation (the first question in the latest podcast - 38 - is designed to help with this). Then listen again, or just read the transcript if you prefer, and pick out a few words or phrases to look up in the dictionary - don't go for too many each time. And remember, what you can't find in the dictionary, you can ask about here in the forums! Hope this helps!

[Brian]

In addition to really lousy translation, Babelfish doesn't always interpret accents, punctuation, and ñ correctly when you paste text into the buffer.

Like Richard says, it's an "approximization" of what is being discussed.

[gary]

When you are forced to get out the dictionary and look up the word, you will most likely not forget the word for a long while...


Greg
I can get the swing of what is being said by listening - if I listen repeatedly then I seem to get more and more - its as if stuff your brain has worked hard to process once can be skimmed over on subsequent hearings.

The transcripts are great for looking up words or phrases said so quickly that the english ear cant separate the words.

A translation would probably make me lazy - nothing sticks if I dont go through the process.....

[cliff]

Thanks for everyone's input. I am encouraged by your responses and will continue to listen to the podcasts even if I don't understand much of what is being said - yet :) .

On a related subject, that I found to be very interesting is that last week my Spanish teacher asked me if I work with Spanish speaking people at the office. I responded that I have four Mexican collegues at the office, but then she said "no, I mean people from Spain, your accent has improved a lot this week and you sound like you have been around Spanish and not Latin Americans". Wow, I can only attribute this improvement to listening to the podcasts repeatedly this last couple of weeks. So even if I don't understand what is being said, my ears are most definately picking up the correct pronunciation of the language. I find this very encouraging.

[Ben]

That's great to hear Cliff!