There's nothing like reading a translation into a language you are studying, of some well-known work of light entertainment (not so demanding it keeps you from persevering), for improving your facility in dealing with texts in the second language. With this in mind, I downloaded the Spanish translation of 'Gone With the Wind' on Kindle and settled down to see if I could hack it. And happily it is quite an easy read until suddenly you stub your toe:
--Scarlett's black eyebrows are said to make a line across her magnolia-white skin that is oblique and...timid? Daring, temperamental Scarlett?? (quick check against original English version - oh, the translator must have confused 'startling,' the word in the original text, meaning 'striking,' with 'startled,' thus suggesting timid.)
--Then there's the slightly contradictory-looking statement that 'Los modales le habian sido impuestos por las amables amonestaciones y la severa disciplina de su madre" - is Mother amable or severa? (Quick check against the English-language original - oh, her manners were inculcated by the loving admonitions of her MOTHER and the severe discipline of her MAMMY - the translator evidently thought mother and mammy were one and the same person, but in fact a 'mammy' in the antebellum context is a serving woman who helped raise the child, in this case a slave who is one of the leading characters in the novel.)
--The sun is seen through the crystal of the Tarleton twins' gafas (eyeglasses) - wait a moment, the TARLETON TWINS?? 'Happy, healthy young animals' of 19 who never open a book? Oh wait, in the original text the twins view the sunlight through their 'mint-garnished' glasses, an adjective omitted by the translator, but one that makes it clear to any Southerner the twins are looking through their DRINKING GLASSES (vasos), having been offered the traditional hospitality of mint juleps.
--And that's just on the FIRST TWO PAGES.
Mercifully, the translation eschews reproduction of the, um, dialect in which the slaves' speech is rendered in the original (for some reason all the whites in the original Gone With the Wind however poor and uneducated seem to use the same pronunciation and grammar as the wealthy planters). And it does read smoothly. But let us say that a little checking and editing might not have gone amiss.
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