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Hasta que se impusieron las máquinas (con la industria)
punto de sellado
Jul 7, 2019 19:48
4 yrs ago
1 viewer *
Spanish term

Tuvo muchas profesiones

Non-PRO Spanish to English Other Anthropology Historia del burro en Esp
El burro o asno fue domesticado por el hombre hace más de 6000 años. A mediados del siglo XX había censados en España 675000 asnos; hoy solo quedan unos 30000. Hasta que se impusieron las máquinas (con la industria) tuvo muchas "profesiones": fue campesino, obrero, taxista, bombero, minero, pastor, nevero y aguador.

¡Mil gracias!

Nota: se humaniza un poco al burro al atribuirle profesiones y me gustaría reflejarlo así en la traducción.
Proposed translations (English)
4 +4 it had a lot of "professions"
3 +8 He had many professions / It had many professions
4 +2 he had a lot of "careers"
4 +1 He/It had many occupations
Change log

Jul 8, 2019 00:47: Yvonne Gallagher changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

PRO (2): JohnMcDove, neilmac

Non-PRO (3): Muriel Vasconcellos, Toni Castano, Yvonne Gallagher

When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.

How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:

An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)

A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).

Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.

When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.

* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.

Discussion

Tomasso Jul 10, 2019:
the burro wore the shoes of.... Pues, una sugerencia mas, the burro filled the shoes of farm worker, taxi driver...translator?
Lester Tattersall Jul 8, 2019:
Question more difficult than it seems, apparently "Agricultural worker" "Labourer" "Taxi-driver" etc can never be described as "professions" in English. If you do, it will look stupid. And if you put the word in inverted commas it will come across as taking the p*ss out of such workers, ridiculing their jobs. In Sp. countries' forms, marriage certificates... they put "Profesión:" And the answers can be anything: Camionero, camarero, empleado (Mexico), sus labores. The equivalent in English is always "Occupation", never "Profession". The writer here hasn't put "profesiones" in inverted commas in order to ridicule peasants, labourers and and taxi-drivers.
JohnMcDove Jul 8, 2019:
@ Carol-Thank you for helping me to see the light. You know, after all my digressions, I think you are right. Somehow, the simplicity of things are so astonishingly simple that are overwhelmingly difficult! But, it reminds me the "Centipede Dilemma", in more ways than one. ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede's_Dilemma
At any rate, next thing to talk about is --talking about donkeys-- the Buridan's ass paradox... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan's_ass#Buridan's_p... Any teenager nowadays should be able to discuss about it... ;-)
Carol Gullidge Jul 8, 2019:
@ John well I think we will have to agree to differ!
Personally, I can't help thinking that we should all have to exercise our little grey cells at least a modicum before deciding that something is "difficult". I still see no difficult aspect in this question despite the fact that there is more than one possible answer - which is always the case when translating anything at all that is not purely technical and hence pretty much cut and dried. The fact that we have to think just a teeny bit - and perhaps weigh up several alternative options - does not make a question Pro, imo! I still persist in believing that there is nothing particularly challenging about this question - it's just one of those decisons that translators deal with every day without batting an eyelid!
JohnMcDove Jul 8, 2019:
@ Carol & Neilmac - Yes, what Neimac notes is exactly what I mean. I answered the question "without batting an eyelid." However, I missed adding the quotation marks and wrote a typo, "huanize" instead of "humanize." Which is very unprofessional on my part. At any rate -- Oh, I see now your answer, Carol. No, I don't think there is a "hidden" or "profound" meaning, but the fact that one has to do a double or a triple take on the matter, is enough for me to say that not any "bilingual" person would resolve this professionally and with ease.
Carol Gullidge Jul 8, 2019:
Neil, there is NEVER just one valid answer! If this were the case, then there would be no such thing as a Pro or Non-Pro question.
But if I am missing something obvious and John believes there is more to this question than meets the eye, then perhaps he should have explained this in his Answer. The fact is that that none of the (perfectly valid) Answers provided so far hints at even the most subtle hidden meaning. Slight nuances perhaps - and we can judge which are our favourites - but there is nothing to stop us from agreeing with different aspects of each of the answers offered so far.
neilmac Jul 8, 2019:
PRO for me Simply because I'm struggling to choose among the suggestions so far (I'd probably prefer "jobs"). And after 3 decades working as a "language professional", I like to think I can handle most "non-pro" type queries without batting an eyelid. That's my criterion anyway, although others may differ. I agree that the previous query from the same passage can be classed non-pro, but not this one.
Carol Gullidge Jul 8, 2019:
Definitely non-pro, imo The fact that there is more than one valid way to express this doesn’t make it a pro question. Perhaps you had better elucidate on the “pro substance”?
JohnMcDove Jul 8, 2019:
With all due respect, in my view, this question although apparently and seemingly "simple" and "Non-Pro" it has more "Pro" substance than it seems "prima facie"... mmm, or "prima ballerina" for that matter!

Proposed translations

+4
6 hrs
Selected

it had a lot of "professions"

literal is ok here
Peer comment(s):
agree JohnMcDove : Yes, with the quotation marks. And this question is way more Pro that it seems... ;-) It is indeed, very "professional" No kidding!! :-)
2 hrs
agree Carol Gullidge
5 hrs
agree Erica McLay
7 hrs
agree Lester Tattersall : Why the "..."? Is it to point out, humoristically, that farm worker, labourer, taxi-driver, etc are not really professions?
19 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you all very much. There are more good answers apart from this one, but finally I have chosen this because of the quotation marks. Yes, perhaps this question should not be considered as a pro one, but I didn´t think this issue was so important, since for us translators every linguistic question dealed with here is in the end treated as a professional one, so I didn't pay so much attention to classifying it as a non-pro question - sorry for that! :-)-. And regarding the word "professions", in Spain taxi-drivers, farm worker, etc. are considered professionals, an academic degree is not needed to have a "profesión". Thanks!"
+8
1 min

He had many professions / It had many professions

You can use "he" if you want to "huanize" it.

Peer comment(s):
agree Muriel Vasconcellos
1 min
Thank you very much, Muriel. :-) / Oooops!, I meant to write "humanize" not "huanize*!"
agree Marie Wilson
32 mins
Thank you very much, Marie. :-)
agree Lester Tattersall : Well, the problem is that none of these are professions: campesino, obrero, taxista, bombero, minero, pastor, nevero y aguador.
1 hr
Thank you very much, Lester. :-) But, what do you mean, "none of these are professions"? Of course they are! But there are quotation marks, because we are talking about a donkey! ;-)
agree Erica McLay : I would have originally said "jobs" but as there are quotation marks, I think that professions suits best.
13 hrs
Thank you very much, Erica. :-)
neutral Jan Castillo : I agree with Lester. In Mexico, for example, una profesión would imply university studies. For that reason I would go for a less literal term like occupations or jobs or careers.
13 hrs
Thank you very much, Jan. :-) See Phil's comment. Also DRAE: https://dle.rae.es/?id=UHx86MW :-)
agree philgoddard : This word is deliberately chosen for humorous effect.
17 hrs
Thank you very much, Phil. :-) Yes, That's is the point
agree Michele Fauble
20 hrs
Muchas gracias, Michele. :-)
agree Carol Gullidge : with or without the quotation marks. I would probably replace "He" or "it" with "Donkeys" but this is a very minor matter of style
22 hrs
Thank you very much, Carol. I agree. :-) (Also tku for the "discussion" notes.)
agree Adolfo Fulco
2 days 3 hrs
Muchas gracias, Adolfo. :-) ¡Saludos!
Something went wrong...
+1
22 mins

He/It had many occupations

Could be a less academic possibility.
Example sentence:

Throughout his life, my uncle had many occupations: butcher, baker, candlestick maker.

Reference:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/occupation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation

Peer comment(s):
agree Lester Tattersall : I agreed with John's above by mistake. I think 'occupations' is better for these jobs,
1 hr
neutral JohnMcDove : The point of using "professions" in quotation marks is to make the point. Otherwise, his/its occupation could also be "eating grass" if you will. :-)
8 hrs
Interesting point, John.
Something went wrong...
+2
24 mins

he had a lot of "careers"

Being a bit satirical, in this case.
Peer comment(s):
agree Lester Tattersall : I like this one best. It might be 'satirical', but in that it matches the Spanish, and can have the inverted commas. I think I'd put: he had lots of different "careers".
1 hr
Thank you, Lester. I am in the process of writing a book that is full of satire, so I guess that's one of the reasons I decided to go with this.
agree Carol Gullidge
11 hrs
Something went wrong...
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