Help with Spanish

[Dave]

Please help,
I want to say "Solar System Of The Teddy Bears" and "Planet of the Pixies" in Spanish in a story and I don't really know any Spanish. Everything I look up in the online translators seems not to work in that none of it seems like its biting satire and most of what I get out seems puzzled by the juxtaposition of two odd concepts (kiddie toys and outer space).

Thanks in advance.

[Sweetpickle]

El Sistema Solar del Oso Teddy

El Planeta Pixie

Teddy and Pixie are idiomatic and there aren't strict translations that I know of.

[C&TL2745]

Or for a somewhat more literal translation:
El Sistema Solar de los Osos Teddy [maintains the plural for the bears]
El Planeta de las Haditas ["El planeta pixie" would be literally "the pixie planet"--the same essential meaning but less literal and open to a second interpretation: "a tiny planet"]

As Sweetpickle noted, translations for Teddy and Pixie are problematic. Hadita is technically "little fairy", which is about as close as I can come to "pixie" in Spanish. "Oso de Felpa" would convey a description for Spanish-speaking people who aren't familiar with the toy, but Osos Teddy would be more meaningful for those who are.

I'm convinced that you can translate a book from English to Spanish reasonably faithfully. A paragraph becomes trickier. Translating a sentence puts you on really thin ice, and the ambiguity of a phrase and the intent behind the phrase make translation almost foolhardy. Single words are simply impossible in general. So much depends on intent and context.

Sandi

[Arab Nights]

My longhaired dictionary came up with a slight variation:

Sistema solar se los osos peluche
El planeta de los pixies

Keep in mind that Spanish can vary from region to region.

[moi621]

What would Calavera say?

Highly recommended.
Ilan Stavans, "Latino USA A Cartoon History" ISBN 13 978-0-465-08221-1
About ten buck online.

[gareth19]

My longhaired dictionary came up with a slight variation:

Sistema solar se los osos peluche
El planeta de los pixies

Keep in mind that Spanish can vary from region to region.

El sistema solar de los ositos de peluche
El planeta de las haditas o El planeta de los duendecillos

Teddy bears are small, so it is a diminutive, osito (not oso) de peluche. For pixie you can use hadita diminutive of hada (< Lat. fata 'fairy' = Fr. fee) These tend to be the feminine, Victorian fairies often with insectous wings like Tinkerbell; duendecillo is more like an elf, a bit more butch and masculine, but still a diminutive creature, not like Tolkien's elves.

[Dave]

Thanks, I'll use at least one of those in the story. It's just what I want.

The story simply requires that three planets be named in Spanish.
The reason is that I'm writing an outerspace version of Robinson Crusoe and I need to follow Dafoe's original story. In that, Crusoe is stranded on a voyage to THE BRAZIL's and he lands in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All Saints' Bay. I want my version of Crusoe to be on a voyage to three planets -- but I want the astute reader to find a bit of humor...

So my line in the story will be something like:
Our first port of call was a charming solar system named El Sistema solar se los osos peluche that had three habitable planets, El Planeta de las Haditas, El Planeta Del Los Jabali, and Roberto.

I like those better for the story. Only a few will actually catch the satire but that's OK. The "Teddy Bear" solar system, has three planets: Pixie as mansions and huge estates and is solely for the rich, "wild boar" (I think) is the jungle planet that is wet and jungle. It is assumed not colonized at all. The reason for that is the aliens can hide from technology and like being aboriginal jungle dwellers. THe third planet "Bob" is being stripped of all its resources to support "Pixie"...

Jabali will be a jungle planet and will serve as the island where Crusoe's spaceship crashes and strands him.
His Man Friday will be an alien -- Deep chest, wolf-like face and jaw, clawed hands with three fingers and a thumb, digitigrade ankles and feet. Tea-colored hide with no hair, humanoid musculature... Or something close to that. I need to work out the alien's details with the rest of the story and the subsequent action. None of that part of the story has been written, yet. As the details fall in place so does the rest story.

The working title for the story is "live and let drool" and I'm not sure how much horror will be in it. It might just be SciFi and not horror. Maybe the aliens will be hairless werewolves types in that they can infect and transform a man. I'm not sure that will work so I don't want to commit to it until I have my Crusoe actually on the planet with his alien Man Friday. The part I haven't worked out yet is their interaction over a period of time and the secrets each brings to the table. There is a very dysfunctional and dystopic earth that sent Crusoe to the stars. He didn't leave on his own.

[Riverwind]

As I do read fan fiction daily when ever I see something like that I have the search engine working to find out exactly what the reference is, I love it. It always shows me that the author has actually given some thought to their story and not just throwing down words.


River