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Sample translations submitted: 2
Spanish to English: Amado Amo General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Spanish A César le habían achicado el despacho dos veces. De pronto llegaban un par de hombres fornidos y en media hora cambiaban las puertas y movían todas las mamparas. La primera vez fue cuando dimitió de su cargo de director de arte: No te molestará que reduzcamos un poco tu despacho, le explicó Morton, de ahora en adelante apenas si lo vas a necesitar. Claro que no, a mí esas tonterías no me importan, respondió entonces él con orgullosa sinceridad. Así es que llegaron los hombretones y corrieron las paredes. Le quitaron uno de los armarios, parte de la ventana y un puñado de metros de moqueta, de modo que ya no tenía lugar para el sofá. Además clausuraron la puerta que daba al antedespacho de la secretaria, abriendo otra entrada, en cambio, que comunicaba este antedespacho con la pecera de Miguel. Que era vecino de panel y quien más se estaba favoreciendo de los corrimientos de mamparas. A Miguel, recién ascendido, fueron a parar su armario, su media ventana y su suelo robado. Pero a César no le importaba nada de eso. Se sentía inmensamente feliz tras liberarse de las responsabilidades de su cargo. Le fastidiaban, sin embargo, los malévolos comentarios de la gente. Vaya, parece que te han quitado la secretaria. Hombre, por lo visto te están achicando la guarida. ¿Y qué ha sido del sofá que antes tenías? Comentarios que se hicieron más sarcásticos e impúdicos tras la segunda reestructuración, cuando se quedó sin ventana y sin el segundo armario y le dejaron el despacho reducido al microscópico chiscón que ahora tenía.
Chico, César, quién te ha visto y quién te ve. ¿Han pasado por aquí los jíbaros? Muy acogedor, tu nuevo despacho; sólo que para estornudar tendrás que salir fuera. Incluso cuando no le importaba de verdad, incluso al principio, César se revolvía ante el escozor de los aguijonazos y se esforzaba en permanecer indiferente frente a sus sonrisas insultantes.
Era cierto que a menudo los castigos y las recompensas de la empresa se manifestaban así, en palmos de ventana y metros de moqueta. Cada vez que los hombretones entraban en la agencia la actividad laboral se detenía, y todos, entre sobrecogidos y fascinados, atendían al correr y descorrer de mamparas, a la ceremonia de enaltecimiento o de degradación. Como quien asiste a un desfile triunfal o a una ejecución pública. Maquiavélico juego este, el del espacio intercambiable; porque todo empequeñecimiento de despacho solía corresponderse con un engrandecimiento en otro sitio, de modo que la ruina de éste suponía la consagración de aquél o viceversa, lo cual, amén de ejemplarizar la ceremonia, fomentaba eficazmente las inquinas personales. Porque era difícil perdonar al que te robaba la moqueta.
Translation - English Amado Amo
Cesar’s office had twice been made smaller. Two muscular men had suddenly appeared and in half an hour had moved the doors and all the partitions. The first time was when he resigned as Art Director.
“You won’t mind if we just make your office a little smaller,” Morton explained, “you’re hardly going to need it now.” “No, of course not, these things don’t matter to me,” Cesar replied with proud sincerity.
So the men arrived and rearranged the walls. They took away one of the cupboards, part of the window and a few feet of carpet which meant that there was no longer room for the couch. They also took away the door which led to the secretary’s office, creating another and communicating her office with Miguel’s goldfish bowl. Miguel was Cesar’s office neighbour and the one who was doing best out of the reshuffling of partitions. It was the recently-promoted Miguel who fell heir to the cupboard, the bit of window, and the stolen carpet. But Cesar was indifferent. He felt tremendously relieved to be free from the responsibility of his previous position. What did bother him were people’s snide remarks.“Oh dear, it looks like you’ve lost your secretary and they’ve given you a smaller den.” “Whatever happened to that couch you used to have?” These were jibes which became more sarcastic and ill-disguised after the second remodelling which left Cesar without a window and a second cupboard and which reduced his already small office to the microscopic cubby hole he now occupied.
“Well! Just look at you now!” “Have the head-shrinkers been through?”
“Very cosy your new office; just you’ll have to go outside if you want to sneeze.” Even when he was truly indifferent, even at the beginning, Cesar flinched at these biting witticisms and forced himself not to let their insulting smiles get to him.
It was true that this was how the company’s punishments and rewards were often shared out – a bit of window here, a bit of carpet there. Each time the men came through the agency’s doors, work stopped and everyone looked on, torn between fear and fascination, riveted by the to-ing and fro-ing of partitions, a ritual which accompanied someone’s promotion or demotion. It was like going to a victory parade or a public execution. Shifting space was a Machiavellian game: for every office that got smaller, another got larger; one person’s downfall was another’s rise, and vice versa. As well as turning the ceremony into a warning of what could happen to anybody, this was also a way of creating personal grudges; because it was hard to forgive someone who had stolen your carpet.
Spanish to English: ¿Hasta cuándo con las drogas? Drugs: when will it end? General field: Medical Detailed field: Medical (general)
Source text - Spanish ¿Hasta cuándo con las drogas?
¿Hasta cuándo?El ingreso en prisión de varios guardias civiles por narcotráfico debería ser motivo para todos de reflexión. Por de pronto, una institución apoyada por la España democrática como instrumento útil en los menesteres más comprometidos, como el terrorismo y la lucha contra el narcotráfico, se está pudriendo por dentro como una ciruela. Yo pronostico que esta situación empeorará. La podredumbre continuará en la misma Guardia Civil y se extenderá a otros cuerpos policiales, al propio ministerio del Interior, al de Justicia, a los funcionarios de prisiones, a los jueces, a las altas capas sociales y a los políticos.
Y no debemos cargar las culpas, aunque así sea, al poder corruptor de los narcotraficantes, a la catadura moral de éstos, a la escasa persecución policial o al refranero, según el cual la manzana podrida pudre a la sana.
La causa, muy al contrario, se encuentra en la política de persecución penal, cada vez más endurecida e irracional en este punto. Llama la observación del lector que, cuando los socialistas arribaron al poder, expresamente se manifestaran condescendientes con el consumo de drogas porque les parecía ejercicio de la libertad individual, que con tanta ansia se estrenaba tras la dictadura, y práctica de la propia responsabilidad. Cuando captaron que el asunto les quedaba grande y no era manejable, acompañado todo ello con las críticas de organismos internacionales y terceros países, se asustaron, convirtiéndose en paladines de la lucha contra el narcotráfico. Este cambio, como el de todo converso, se hizo tan radical que determinó un clima de apriorismo condenando todo lo relacionado con las llamadas drogas orientales.
Las consecuencias encadenadas que trae esta situación son absolutamente irracionales.
1. Se anatematizan las drogas de origen externo a nuestra cultura (cocaína de América, opio de Oriente) y se fomenta el consumo de las propias (alcohol). 2. Se declaran ilegales y fuera de comercio las primeras, cuando son imprescindibles (léase bien, imprescindibles) en la medicina para luchar contra el dolor. 3. La ilegalidad y la persecución dan lugar a la carestía, y ésta a la marginación social del consumidor que no puede obtener el dinero por sus propios medios y tiene que recurrir a los ajenos, a voluntad o por la fuerza. 4. La consiguiente delincuencia obliga a gastos ingentes para mantener en prisión a la numerosa población reclusa y crear organismos y personal policial y judicial apropiados, quienes usan en ocasiones sus competencias con la sola finalidad de hacerse conocidos. 5. El poder corruptor del dinero del narcotráfico alcanza a los funcionarios y a la Guardia Civil ... y vuelta a empezar.
En la medida en que no se ha conseguido el mínimo objetivo de impedir, al menos, el crecimiento del consumo y tráfico de drogas foráneas, se han alzado voces de llamada a la razón para acabar con esta diabólica trampa. Al parecer, existe un colectivo vasco que propugna la liberación de las drogas sobre la base de que pueden ser controladas mejor desde la legalidad (como ocurre con el alcohol) evitando así las muertes por sobredosis y adulteración y las epidemias de sida y hepatitis. La legalización, además, facilitaría el acceso a la droga de los enfermos, que, al calvario de su propia enfermedad, han de añadir las dificultades para el alivio del dolor derivadas de los obstáculos administrativos para su suministro y del miedo de algunos facultativos a recetarla. La legalización, por último, rebajaría el precio en un 32.000% (ha leído bien, señor lector) por la abundancia de producto natural y la facilidad de su elaboración.
Esta opinión está muy extendida entre los juristas españoles ‑ catedráticos, magistrados, jueces y fiscales ‑ que se manifestaron a través del Manifiesto de Málaga, en 1989, "rotundamente en contra de cualquier intento de penalización del consumo”.
Translation - English Drugs: when will it end?
The imprisonment of several members of the Guardia Civil on charges of drug trafficking should be a cause for reflection. Before our very eyes an institution supported by the Spanish democratic state, a valued tool in the most compromising of situations – such as the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking – is rotting away at its core. I predict that this situation will get worse. The rot will continue inside the Guardia Civil, and will spread into other police corps, into the Ministries of the Interior and of Justice; it will contaminate prison staff, judges, the upper echelons of society, and politicians.
We should not simply put the blame on the corrupting influence of the drug traffickers, or on their lack of morality, or on the inactivity of the police, or on the old saying that one bad apple spoils the rest – even though all of these factors have indeed contributed.
The cause of the problem lies in the policy of prosecuting drug consumption, a policy which is becoming more entrenched and more irrational every day. When the Socialists came to power, they treated the issue with indulgence, believing that drug consumption was a question of individual freedom – a principle so long denied under the dictatorship, and exercised with such frenzy after it – and of one's own responsibility. When they saw that the matter was bigger than they had expected, and, indeed, beyond their control, and that their policies were coming under fire from international organizations and other countries amongst those affected, they took fright, and unfurled the banner of the fight against the drug trade. As is the case with all converts, this change was radical, so much so that it created an atmosphere of dogmatism that immediately condemned everything related with what are known as Oriental drugs.
This attitude creates an utterly irrational situation.
1. Drugs from outside our culture (cocaine from Latin America, opium from the East) are considered anathema. In contrast, the consumption of drugs from inside our culture, such as alcohol, is encouraged. 2. The former are declared illegal and their sale prohibited even though they are essential – essential – in medicine to alleviate pain. 3. Illegality and prosecution raise prices, and high prices lead in turn to marginalization, as users cannot obtain sufficient funds by their own means to pay for their habit and have to resort to others, by begging or by using violence. 4. The ensuing crime entails huge costs, as the numerous prison population must be paid for, and provision must be made for organizations and police and legal staff; the latter on occasion use their new positions solely for personal betterment. 5. The corrupting power of the money from the drug trade reaches prison staff and the Guardia Civil, and the same old cycle starts all over again.
Since the minimum objective of at least halting the growth of consumption and traffic of foreign drugs has not been achieved, some appeals for a return to sanity have been heard, voicing a desire to find some way out of this nightmarish trap. It appears that there is a Basque group that argue for the legalization of drugs, contending that they could be more easily controlled, as is the case of alcohol. Deaths due to overdose or to the consumption of adulterated substances would thus be avoided, and the effects of the epidemics of AIDS and hepatitis would be lessened. Legalization would also ease access to drugs for the ill, whose distress as victims of a particular disease is only compounded by the difficulties that they encounter in trying to get hold of drugs to alleviate their suffering – difficulties deriving from the administrative obstacles that impede the public's access to drugs, and from the reluctance of certain doctors to prescribe them. Finally, legalization would bring down the price by 32,000% – 32,000% – as the product grows abundantly in the natural environment and is very easy to process.
This opinion is widely held among Spanish legal experts – university professors, magistrates, judges and prosecuting counsels – who, in the Manifesto of Malaga in 1989, declared themselves to be "wholly against any attempt to penalize consumption".
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Translation education
Master's degree - Swansea University
Experience
Years of experience: 20. Registered at ProZ.com: Oct 2016.
German to English (Swansea University, verified) Spanish to English (Swansea University, verified) German (Aberystwyth University, verified) Spanish (Aberystwyth University, verified) Italian (Aberystwyth University, verified)
I was born and raised in West Wales and am fully bilingual in Welsh and English. For 20 years, I worked as Head of Languages in UK and international secondary schools and universities, teaching higher-level Spanish, German, English and Welsh. I currently work as a freelance translator, course writer and proofreader. I am a Chartered Linguist and a full member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and MET. I am also a qualified proofreader and editor with a Level 4 Diploma. I am a member of Sfep (Society for Editors and Proofreaders, UK).
I have an MA in Translation with Language Technology (German and Spanish) from Swansea University as well as a BA in European Languages - German, Spanish and Italian from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. I also hold a PGCE (Exeter University) and CELTA (Cambridge University) in languages. This academic training has equipped me with the necessary skills to produce accurate and quality translations with careful attention to detail.
I have lived in Germany, Spain, Italy, Kazakhstan and China for considerable amounts of time and travel regularly to these countries. I am fluent in English, Welsh, German, Spanish and Italian. I regularly take part in continuing professional development in the form of workshops, conferences and private study. Here is a selection of courses that I have undertaken: Diploma in Translation Preparatory Course, IH Barcelona, Spain; Proofreading and editing course, College of Media and Publishing, UK; CPD webinars:
Clear Writing Course, Successful Copywriting, Business School for Translations, Excel: An efficiency tool for the freelance translator, Introduction to subtitling, Translating for the creative industries: fashion, beauty and wine, Specialising in Financial Translation
Spanish Legal Translation – A comparison of two different legal systems.
I have a DBS Enhanced Clearance certificate. I have undertaken translations in the fields of education, travel and tourism, government, business and marketing, current affairs and art/film/music. I am also happy to consider proofreading projects in a range of other subjects.
