Song translation

[shaunflan2017_73231]

Hola!

I am new to Spanish studies and have decided to try my hand at translating a few Spanish language songs by Shakira.
Despite this seeming like a simple task it has instead proven to be very difficult.
It appears to me as though the English translations available in no way correspond to what I produced after my attempts.
I have tentatively concluded that the English translations of these songs are more approximate interpretations rather than literal translations.

Is this anywhere close to the truth??

Any advice is fully appreciated.

[carlavapu5507]

Hola,

Thank you for your comment.
It's very true, translating is very difficult if this already has a meaning in its original language.
What they generally do is translate it to the closest idea, and do not translate it literally cause this way it won't make much sense.
Please let us know if you have a question or doubt.

Saludos,
Carla
Team SpanishPod101.com

[Mercurio]

As a native English speaker learning Spanish, I find it is very hard to translate a Spanish song into English, but it is much easier to translate an English song into Spanish and produce a result that makes sense and is not embarrassing. However, you will find that translating a song from English to Spanish is far harder than translating your thoughts from thoughts into Spanish. When you want to express your own thoughts, you have a lot more freedom to pick vocabulary and make things simple. When translating a song, you are faced with the realization that most songs say very little, if you boil it down to simple vocabulary.

Here is how I would translate the song Chantaje by Shakira, using only very basic vocabulary:

Maluma: You are my girlfriend, but we are having relationship problems. Why don't you talk about this to my face?

Shakira: No, no, I totally like you. But I am unpredictable and difficult.

Both: You are pure, pure blackmail.

Everything else is just metaphors and stuff that rhymes and subtext. It's not like the song tells a story, at least not beyond what I have written above. It's not even clear what it means to call your partner "pure blackmail".

[carlavapu5507]

Hola Mercurio,
All it's very true. I believe translating it's a very difficult job, in both ways. I admire how Disney songs are so well translated.
The best way is to just understand the meaning in each language.

Saludos,
Carla
Team SpanishPod101.com