isabel

I'm using the English verion of a site that has bus schedules from Madrid to neighboring towns (auto-res) but I keep getting the same pop up screen with a Spanish message. I've actually asked three of my students who are native Spanish speakers and they can't translate it for me. Then I put it in the Altavista-BabelFish on-line translater and it made very little sense. Sooo - any one want to help me out here. Here's the message:

Hasta la finalización de las obras en la M-30, desde el día 11 de Septiembre de 2.006 queda suprimida la parada que se venia realizando en el Paseo de la Florida, efectuándose la entrada y la salida de Madrid por la M-40. Rogamos disculpen las molestias.

Gracias

cruiseluv

Starting on Sept. 11 2006 until the works on M-30 ( this is a highway/road) are finalized , the stop at Paseo de la Florida is canceled. The entrance and exit from Madrid will be done through M-40(another highway). Please excuse the inconveniences.

Thank you

lincasanova

and your students are native spanish speakers??

Alec

M30 and M40 are orbital motorway (freeway beltway) around Madrid, M30 being a few miles closer to the centre. M30 is only partially complete, and there are roadworks currently underway to extend it westwards.

Graziella5b

Gosh, I agree with lin casanova, how come they were not able to translate it, Cruiseluv did it impeccably.
I think it might help you to have a careful look at a map of Madrid.

FainaAgain

Don't hurry to blame the native Spanish speakers! Yes, their language is Spanish, but they translate into English, which is not their strength!

I am fluent in Russian, but translation from Russian to English is difficult. The other way around - much easier!

kenderina

ah, ok, so the spanish speakers problem was in fact english...I still don't understand it, I mean, maybe they cannot translate it perfectly into English but it sounds strange to me they cannot explain it to isabel even in another words...they are supposed to be in the States

Graziella5b

Since we are at M-30 and M-40, which are highway rings around bigger Madrid, let me warm you of taxis that wish to take you to Barajas Airport that way. Sometimes if it is the rush hour at it highest and depending of the location of your hotel it might be a good idea. But in my experience a much shorter road is, Paseo de la Castellana, Maria de Molina, and Avenida de America which will take to M-30 but way closer to the airport.
I would recommend to every person taking a taxi to Barajas to check the map, and to know what route would make more sense from his/her hotel.
A few days back I had a discussion with a taxi driver that insisted in taking the M-30 versus the other route, it was Sunday morning at 8:00 AM. At the end He did it my way, because I remembered a good advise from
Maribel, thanks Maribel !!, I told him BTW I am going to need a receipt of the trip. I did not know that receipts are printed by the" taxi's clock", and show all details he cannot fool around.
His face was livid when he kind of pushed into us the suitcases.
He had some extra euros anyway because I noticed that when he come to the hotel his reloj was marking way ahead, like 5 euros, that although it was a SUnday it was I believe too much. Hope this helps other travelers .

isabel

Thank you cruiseluv. I knew someone here could help.

I was a bit surprised my students couldn't translate it - they kind of did a literal translation, similar to the one Altavista-BabelFish did and it really didn't make much sense. They are from Puerto Rico not Spain, but still, I expected they could do it. I guess not knowing what an M-30 is didn't help.

Just in case anyone is interested - this is how the BabelFish site translalted it: "Until the conclusion of works in the M-30, from day 11 of September of 2,006 it is suppressed the shutdown that venia being made in the Stroll of Florida, taking place the entrance and the exit of Madrid by the M-40. We requested excuse the annoyances" As you can see, literal translations can be rather confusing.

But now I know, so thanks.

cruiseluv

Hola Isabel,

You are welcome. But now you have piqued my interest.... You say your students are from Puerto Rico. That's interesting they couldn't help you. I grew up in PR, actually that is where I learned most of my English. Don't know why they would have difficulty, people in Spain and PR speaks pretty much the same Spanish.

What do you teach them?

Graciela,

I will have to remember the "trick" with the cab diver. Twice I have been fooled by cab drivers in Madrid! And both times I was alone, so I didn't dare make a scene.

J_Correa

Well - regardless of the students, I was quite happy that even with my rusty Mexican Spanish, I was able to get the gist of the message It has been a difficult week, so it is nice to know I can do SOMETHING pretty much right - LOL.

isabel

cruiseluv - the students were able to come up with something pretty similar to what BabelFish came up with - so it's not like they couldn't translate the basic words, it's just that it didn't make sense. For example I had to explain to them that the M-30 was probably a highway, like I-95 in the US. But yes, it does bother me that they couldn't simply translate it well enough for me to feel comfortable that I knew what it meant.

I teach them in a basic Nursing Program. We have a lot of ESL students (not just Spanish speakers) and they do struggle, but clearly their English is good enough to get by, even if just barely, in a college level program.

GBbabe

I have read that best translation is done from a language the translator knows well into their own native language. There are just too many nuances in language that non-natives get caught in. I love reading promotional materials done by French and Spanish companies. They get it so almost right, but there is always a word or phase that just isn't the correct one.

So I am not surprised the students weren't able to translate it, they were trying their best in a language they aren't native in.

isabel

The students in question are native Spanish speakers and fluent enough in English to take college courses in it. But I think the main problem was that they haven't ever traveled to Europe - having been to Spain I know that a Paseo is a kind of street, and an M-30 is a highway - even though I don't speak Spanish. But they didn't know that, so I think that kind of hung them up a bit. But Fodors to the rescue. Now I just have to figure out where the bus stop is if it's not at Paseo de la Florida.

Thanks again everyone.

J_Correa

LOL - being a Californian, I know that Paseo is a kind of street too I did learn last summer that a tortilla in Spain and a tortilla in California are not the same though.

Viajero2

Like cruiseluv, I grew up in Puerto Rico and came to the US fully bilingual in English and Spanish. I can not think of one person in my high school class that could not translate the paragraph that Isabel posted. As an engineer I have translated highly technical information from English to Spanish many times with no difficulty.

I suspect what Isabel calls "native speakers" are actually students born in the US of Puerto Rican descent, which makes Spanish their second language, not their native language. I have cousins in the same situation and I definitely would not rely on them translating to Spanish for me. They have decent conversational skills, but that's the extent of their abilities.

I suggest that Isabel may need to get a better understanding of her students demographics so that no false conclusions be stated when the wrong assumptions were made to begin with.