When I try to translate from one language to another I always remember the Italian expression: “Traduttore tradittore” (I think is not quite correctly written in Italian, but you got the idea, no?). But when I try to write in English I arrive to be nearly the perfect traitor. My first text was simple, and I was thinking it was good. So, I talk with a friend, (category “call a friend” - thank you Ana) and she tells me about what was wrong with my text.
When I try to write a text in English, a surprise is that English is not only using the English word, is using English expressions. I knew that and am ok. I go to the internet and I find a site where they make the direct translation. This is ok; I will write Romanian expressions and, automatically, will appear in English expressions.
I want to write a short story about an experience that I have when I was at an autoservice with my car. In Romanian, we say that we go to the guy who will repair my vehicle. I begin to write in Romanian: “am avut probleme cu autoturismul si am fost cu el al mecanic” and in English appear: “I had problems with his car and we were the mechanism”. His car? We where the mechanism? Enough, I tell to myself, I’m agree that I don’t know the best way to use English, but to translate car to his car I think is too much. So, in English when I don’t say who’s belong an object, this mean is not mine?
And the second part … Ups, it was my mistake. Romanian mistake. Instead of writing “la” I was writing “al”. So I will write the guy who repair my car.
I remember, in high school, my literature teacher told us about the metaphor: The metaphor appear when you don’t have a word to tell something or you don’t remember that word, and you use an expression to define the concept. Let say, that Cristi don’t know the word “bored”, and he will say “I was looking at the window not hearing what the teacher said”.
You know, that teacher did not like my moustache.
