For the past few weeks — almost since the beginning, actually — I have been sharing with you some of the Latino pop songs I’ve been finding on YouTube and/or those which mi hermana has shared with me. One of the reasons I listen to these, apart from the beauty of the music itself, is to train my ear to the pronunciation of las palabras (the words) being sung, and the diction with which the artists sing them.
Another benefit to my exposure to esta música, though, is that I become curious enough about what is being sung to make use of translation sites where I find the lyrics in both Español and Inglés. One such site — my “go-to”, actually — is LyricsTranslate, where you can find songs written in many languages translated into various others. I have been visiting that site since way back when I first needed to know the (English) meaning of the lyrics to Soy El Mismo, the first song Lupita ever shared with me, back in octubre de 2015.
Bold or Indebted?
As I became more familiar with the site, it dawned on me that the effort there is definitely “crowdsourced”, to use the parlance of the last few years here in Internet Land. In fact, there were frequently multiple (though usually no more than 2 or 3) English translations for the songs I was researching. Some were better than others, which, I suppose, is the point. Each member establishes a profile and can interact socially and compete with other members.
The site enables its members to request translations, but also affords them the opportunity to translate songs themselves, proofread others’ translations, or even transcribe songs. I would like to do some of each, eventually, and I would like to start very soon. The lyrics for algunas de las canciones performed by my new favourite singing duo, Ha*Ash, are not available yet. What a great opportunity for me!
I am expecting a DVD in the mail very soon, and it will hopefully contain a lyrics page or, at the very least, closed captioning or subtitles. My plan is to transcribe the lyrics using the subtitles, and then translate them using my dictionary and what I have learned so far in the Rocket Spanish course I have been (slowly) making my way through. It’s a little ambitious at my current level, but I think I’m up to the challenge. Hope you do, too!
Más información pronto
I had a little mishap attempting to register on the site. My chosen moniker, which I’ll leave you to guess until I can reveal it here in a subsequent post, has gotten stuck in Internet Limbo somewhere. I never got an email from the site to verify the address I used, and yet the site tells me that the username is already taken. (It didn’t when I first registered the name.)
I have appealed to the site’s admins/moderators to set my username free so that I can make another attempt at registering it. Hopefully they will be responsive. If not, I’ll choose another handle and move forward with that, albeit disappointedly. In either case, look for another post one day soon announcing my new profile on the site, as well as, hopefully, my first translation. Perhaps you might even join me there.
¡Hasta luego, amigas!
