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Emily is writing a letter in Spanish. Help!

gomidoggomidog
edited April 2009 in Everything Else
I am writing to an eight year old Ecuadorian girl named Miriam, who is my sponsored kid from Plan International. It's kind of a pen-pal/cross cultural charity sponsership, where you write letters to a kid in a developing country, and you help the kids in the village go to school and stuff. My mom's friend Leslie did it for years (she even got to visit her kid when she was in the peace corps in Africa) and it sounded really cool. Also the Order of the Stick guy does it. I think it is a good charity.

Annyway, I am writing my first letter to Miriam with the help of a Phrasebook and dictionary. Spanish speakers on the forum, I need your help. Can you look at my letter before I write it on paper? Tell me how silly I sound.

Querida Miriam,
Hola. ¡Tanto gusto! ¿Cómo estás?
No hablo bien español, pero escribí una carta. Me llamo Emily Compton. Tengo veinticuatro años, y Vivo en Nueva York. Yo soy artista de juegos de video. Es muy divertido. Yo dibujo mucho. ¿Qué asignaturas estudiáis? Hablo japonés. Yo vivía en Tokio. Yo era un estudiante de intercambio. Voy a dibujar algo. ¿qué quieres de un boceto?
Me gusta mucho mi familia. Aquí está una foto de ellos. Tengo mi madre y mi padre y una hermana. Se llama Margaret. Ella quiere ser médico, y Ella está aprendiendo español. Por favor dígame sobre su familia. ¿Tienes hermanos o hermanas? ¿Cuál es su casa, como?
¿cuál es su animal favorito? Me gustan los conejos. Mi conejo le gusta la carrera en mi casa. Ella es un muy lindo conejo.

Lo siento mi español es malo. Voy a escribir otra carta.
¡Felices Pascuas!

-Emily Compton

Comments

  • Victor FrostVictor Frost
    I'm no expert, but it looks okay to me. Remember, babelfish can be very helpful in this situation.
  • gomidoggomidog
    I don't trust Babelfish to catch errors. I checked it with Google translate, and it came out kinda funny and kept translating my sister as "He."
  • ......
    Nine knows no Spanish, but why are you translating 'New York'?
  • whateverwhatever
    Nine knows no Spanish, but why are you translating 'New York'?
    My Spanish text book translates New York.
  • SailSail
    edited April 2009
    It's gramatically correct. The language is simple, but you say your Spanish is bad and you're writing to an eight year old. So I say you did a good job with this.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • ErwinErwin
    edited April 2009
    I would have written it like this:

    Querida Miriam

    Hola. Gusto en conocerte!, ¿Cómo estás?
    No hablo muy bien el español, pero escribí una carta, de todas maneras. Mi nombre es Emily Compton. Tengo veinticuatro años, y vivo en Nueva York. Yo soy una artista de juegos de video. Es muy divertido. Yo dibujo mucho. ¿Qué clases estudias? SE hablar en japonés y tambien viví en Tokio, ya que fuí una estudiante de intercambio estudiantil. Quiero dibujarte also, ¿qué quieres que te dibuje?
    Yo quiero mucho a mi familia. Aquí te mando unas cuantas fotos de ellos. Tengo a mi mamá, a mi papá y una hermana. Mi hermana se llama Margaret y quiere ser médico, y está aprendiendo español. Por favor cuentame sobre tu familia. ¿Tienes hermanos o hermanas? ¿Como es su casa?
    ¿cuál es su animal favorito? A mi me gustan los conejos. A mi conejo le gusta correr en mi casa. Ella es una coneja muy bonita y linda.

    Lo siento mi español no es muy bueno, pero te voy a escribir otra carta.

    ¡Felices Pascuas!

    -Emily Compton


    Note: You can use either Felices Pascuas or Feliz Semana Santa

    I hope I was of some help :D
    Post edited by Erwin on
  • ErwinErwin
    Nine knows no Spanish, but why are you translating 'New York'?
    Yeah, about that. People all over the work translate the name of places. Just like Nihon is Japan. I used to say "Nueva York" too back when I was in Perú since I didn't know English.
  • gomidoggomidog
    Thanks so much, Erwin! Awesome!

    Yeah, I never took Spanish, so this is kind of a challenge for me. I learned a lot writing this letter, even though it sounds like a grade-schooler wrote it.
  • MrRobotoMrRoboto
    edited April 2009
    Id write it like this:

    Querida Miriam

    Hola, gusto en conocerte, ¿Como estas?

    Aunque no hablo muy bien español, igual te escribí una carta. Mi nombre es Emily Compton, tengo veinticuatro años y vivo en Nueva York. Trabajo como artista para una compañía de videojuegos, es muy divertido y dibujo mucho ¿Quieres que te mande un dibujo de algo? También se hablar japonés ya que viví en Tokio por algunos años como estudiante de intercambio ¿Vos que estudias?

    Yo quiero mucho a mi familia, aquí te mando unas fotos de ellos, mi mamá, mi papá y mi hermana. Mi hermana se llama Margaret y quiere ser médico, también esta aprendiendo español.¿Y tu familia? ¿Tienes hermanos o hermanas? Cuéntame un poco de ellos.

    ¿Cuál es tu animal favorito? A mi me gustan mucho los conejos. A mi conejo le gusta correr por toda la casa, es un conejo muy bonito.

    De nuevo, lo siento por mi español que no es muy bueno, igual te seguiré escribiendo.

    ¡Felices Pascuas!

    Emily Compton


    But then it would beat the purpose of saying "My spanish is bad", so you can either send the original you intended (that you can understand, even if it seems written by a 8 year old) or send a proper but not so from the heart one.
    Post edited by MrRoboto on
  • gomidoggomidog
    edited April 2009
    Hmm. I guess I'll do a mix, maybe? It's still pretty close, and I guess I don't mind not sounding like I'm in third grade. I'll write that my friends helped me with the letter. Guys, really, thanks for your help. I will write the letter on my Moomintroll stationary tomorrow and send it. Maybe I'll post when I get a reply.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • ErwinErwin
    Hmm. I guess I'll do a mix, maybe? It's still pretty close, and I guess I don't mind not sounding like I'm in third grade. I'll write that my friends helped me with the letter. Guys, really, thanks for your help. I will write the letter on my Moomintroll stationary tomorrow and send it. Maybe I'll post when I get a reply.
    If she is a girl I would recommend a drawing of Candy Candy, since it is big down there.
  • ......
    Yeah, about that. People all over the work translate the name of places. Just like Nihon is Japan. I used to say "Nueva York" too back when I was in Peru since I didn't know English.
    I should've been more clear, why the heck translate 'New York' to 'Nueva York'? That looks and sounds ridiculous! 'New York', to me, is pretty much the last city name one would translate, I mean, 'new' is not that hard a word to pronounce. That's the reason to translate the name of a city, like "The Hague", one can perfectly understand that a native English speaker is incapable of pronouncing "'s-Gravenhage" (you people can't pronounce 'g's or 'r's for crap :p), but New York? It just strikes me as very odd to just translate half of the name, or is there something in Spanish pronunciation that makes pronouncing the English 'new' difficult?
  • ErwinErwin
    Well, everything started when companies started dubbing American sitcoms or movies. If there was a sign in a movie, background voice would say the name of the sign in Spanish, you can imagine how many movies were set in New York if there was a sign that said "New York Police Department" the background voice would say "Departamento de Policia de Nueva York", and I think it is the same for South Carolina and all the souths and norths, since down there we still say "Carolina del Sur". Even wikipedia uses Nueva York in spanish.
  • ......
    Well, everything started when companies started dubbing American sitcoms or movies. If there was a sign in a movie, background voice would say the name of the sign in Spanish, you can imagine how many movies were set in New York if there was a sign that said "New York Police Department" the background voice would say "Departamento de Policia de Nueva York", and I think it is the same for South Carolina and all the souths and norths, since down there we still say "Carolina del Sur". Even Wikipedia uses Nueva York in Spanish.
    That could explain, but it still sounds so ridiculous to me. Though my pronunciation of Spanish is probably just as ridiculous.
  • MrRobotoMrRoboto
    Just the same London is Londres, its the same way with Roberto and Robert, Mary and María, José and Joseph.

    Oh, and Spanish rarely uses the W as well, but we have the cool looking Ñ.
  • gomidoggomidog
    Man, Nine, I bet in Dutch you don't pronounce the names of certain cities in Japan and China the way native speakers pronounce them. I bet you don't call China "Zhōng guó." Oh, how ridiculous!
  • MankoonMankoon
    I'm glad other people jumped into help you here. My spanish isn't that good but I saw where you could have done better. Erwin and Mr.Roboto caught all of it though.
    For the record, my mom always said "Nueva Yor" for New York.
  • ......
    Oh, how ridiculous!
    How so? I cannot pronounce "Zh?ng guó", not to mention, China is a country. You are making the same mistake as Erwin and talk about translating countries when I talk about translating capital cities.
  • MrRobotoMrRoboto
    Oh, how ridiculous!
    How so? I cannot pronounce "Zh?ng guó", not to mention, China is a country. You are making the same mistake as Erwin and talk about translating countries when I talk about translating capital cities.
    As I pointed out, its just a translation of names, when available, we use the Spanish one.
  • gomidoggomidog
    talk about translating countries when I talk about translating capital cities.
    It's the same principle, in my opinion.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    I should've been more clear, why the heck translate 'New York' to 'Nueva York'?
    We do it in English all the time. It's actually "Mexico DF" if you ask any Mexican, yet in English it's "Mexico City."
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