Original:
Olha que coisa mais linda
Mais cheia de graça
É ela menina
Que vem e que passa
Num doce balanço
A caminho do mar
Moça do corpo dourado
Do sol de Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que um poema
É a coisa mais linda que eu já vi passar
Translation #1:
Look what thing more beautiful
More filled of grace
Is she girl
Coming and going
In a sweet balance
The way to the sea
Miss of golden body
The Ipanema sun
Your balance is more than one poem
It’s the thing most beautiful that I have ever seen pass
Principle #1: When translating the previous passage, my first method was to translate word by word regardless of whether it would be grammatically correct. I wanted to bring forth the literal meaning and pay no mind to what the author of the song is trying to convey. For instance, although “Is she girl” makes absolutely no sense, that is actually the exact translation of the Portuguese phrase: “É ela menina.” Seeing how incoherent the literal translation of the song turned out emphasizes that although when reading translated works we may often want to know exactly what something means, knowing the literal meaning will probably be of no help. In fact, it is likely that the literal meaning will not fit into our grammatical system or have any meaning in our society.
Translation #2:
Look at this beautiful being
Full of grace
Its her
That comes and goes
Moving sweetly
Towards the ocean
Girl with the golden body
From Ipanema’s sun
The way you move is more than a poem
It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen
Principle #2: Since I grew up listening to this song–a classic in Brazil–I immediately saw how much the literal meaning distorted it. Therefore, for my second translation I decided to keep both what the author is trying to depict as well as my personal views in mind. Describing the girl as a thing actually enhances the Portuguese version of the song for it fits into the society. It makes her iconic rather than simply a girl the author spotted on the beach. However, I felt that to capture this I needed to change thing from being when writing the english version. Aside from this, I also decided to change a few words that although were not the literal meaning, actually managed to highlight the overall meaning of the passage in a better light.
This is a beautiful poem. I am taking a linguistics course and one of the things we have noticed across the board is word order, and how in English it is essential for words to be arranged in a specific way for the sentence to make sense (or mean what you want it to mean), while in other languages, such as Latin or Sandawe, the order is not as necessary. It is interesting to see that Portuguese phrase “is she girl” as how it would be directly translated in English, because it highlights those differences of structure and words between languages.
I thought your translation was gorgeous, and it is great to see that though it is necessary to change words for grammatical reasons, the meaning can stay the same in both languages.