Gracenote, which nows operates the CDDB is a godsend for those who use portable music players, playing electronic files of music ripped from CD's. I could not imagine what it would be like to have enter in song titles manually. It would certainly redefine tedium.
I usually set my MP3 player to random, especially when I'm on the subway. The other day I heard a song and didn't recognize it at first, so I looked on my player and noted that it was from Hermeto Pascoal's CD, Slaves Mass. The song title was Chorinho Pra Ele, but the actual title was put in parentheses and the truly asinine translation was literally translated as Little Cry for Him.
This is silly. Chorinho is a genre and should not be translated. Anyone who was at all familiar with Hermeto Pascoal would certainly know this. Translating it as "Little Cry," especially when the diminutive in Portuguese is used as a term of endearment as much as actually being diminutive, is silly. It makes as much sense as translating concerto to concert. Yes it's technically correct, but it rips all context and meaning from it.
The song itself, however, is terrific. See for yourself here as Sivuca and a Swedish guitarist I'm not familiar with play the tune.
Portuguese is a language I always wanted to learn. When I was about 6, my father's company sent him to Brazil for about 6 months. My mother and I traveled with him. I think I learned about 100 words (maybe more) from a 'child minder' who spoke no English, but who would stay with me when my parents were taking in the sights and the culture. We communicated by pointing to pictures in a magazine. Later I would learn that the ease with which I learned French in high school could be attributed to this 100+ word Portuguese vocabulary learned at a critical stage of language acquisition. I have always wanted to return to Brazil, but a graduate student I was in class with said not to go. I would be disappointed he said. It would not look at all the same. Better I should keep my (vivid) childhood memories as they are.
Posted by: bystander | September 17, 2007 at 09:03 AM