Hatrack River Forum: Translating... Songs

This is topic Translating... Songs in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :

Some of Andrea Bocelli's songs I want to know in English translation. Although my Italian includes several nouns I was acquainted with, a capability of counting to many thousands, few verbs and not many more adjectives or adverbs.

How do I get a poetic-regarded translation of those songs (primarily Vivo Per Ley, though Con te Partiro and Romanza wouldn't harm).

I don't know (m)any people who speak Italian well enough. My father refuses to translate himself...

Help? Thanks in advance.

JH

Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :

There's a really great online dictionary for French, Spanish and Italian called wordreference.com that I use all the time - it has a better database than even print dictionaries that I have, and includes a lot of colloquial and slang.

The trick to being able to translate well is to acquaint yourself with the common verb conjugations. I like the 501 Verbs series of books (here is 501 Italian Verbs) - once you've acquired the ability to recognize the verb tenses (the conditional and subjunctive ones are the ones that can really throw a wrench into your understanding of a passage), you can translate just about anything with a good dictionary at your side. [Smile]

Notice how I'm not giving you an easy way out of this...

Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :

http://www.xs4all.nl/~josvg/cits/sb/sb412.html#trans

http://beespit.crosswinds.net/bocelli.html

http://www.abmusica.com/song_index.htm

Remember, google is your friend! [Big Grin]

Edited twice to add links.

Edited a third time to say that I didn't check if they're poetic or not.

[ January 12, 2005, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Corwin ]

Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :

Grazie!!!