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25th translation contest: "Alien first impressions" » English to Spanish

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Source text in English

Imagine dining in a European capital where you do not know the local language. The waiter speaks little English, but by hook or by crook you manage to order something on the menu that you recognise, eat and pay for. Now picture instead that, after a hike goes wrong, you emerge, starving, in an Amazonian village. The people there have no idea what to make of you. You mime chewing sounds, which they mistake for your primitive tongue. When you raise your hands to signify surrender, they think you are launching an attack.

Communicating without a shared context is hard. For example, radioactive sites must be left undisturbed for tens of thousands of years; yet, given that the English of just 1,000 years ago is now unintelligible to most of its modern speakers, agencies have struggled to create warnings to accompany nuclear waste. Committees responsible for doing so have come up with everything from towering concrete spikes, to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, to plants genetically modified to turn an alarming blue. None is guaranteed to be future-proof.

Some of the same people who worked on these waste-site messages have also been part of an even bigger challenge: communicating with extraterrestrial life. This is the subject of “Extraterrestrial Languages”, a new book by Daniel Oberhaus, a journalist at Wired.

Nothing is known about how extraterrestrials might take in information. A pair of plaques sent in the early 1970s with Pioneer 10 and 11, two spacecraft, show nude human beings and a rough map to find Earth—rudimentary stuff, but even that assumes aliens can see. Since such craft have no more than an infinitesimal chance of being found, radio broadcasts from Earth, travelling at the speed of light, are more likely to make contact. But just as a terrestrial radio must be tuned to the right frequency, so must the interstellar kind. How would aliens happen upon the correct one? The Pioneer plaque gives a hint in the form of a basic diagram of a hydrogen atom, the magnetic polarity of which flips at regular intervals, with a frequency of 1,420MHz. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, the hope is that this sketch might act as a sort of telephone number.

Winning entries could not be determined in this language pair.

There were 29 entries submitted in this pair during the submission phase. Not enough votes were submitted by peers for a winning entry to be determined.

Competition in this pair is now closed.


Entries (29 total) Expand all entries

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Entry #30833 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.833.78 (9 ratings)3.88 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 3 "like" tags
  • 4 users agreed with "likes" (6 total agrees)
+1
El camarero chapurrea algo de inglés
Flows well
Laetitia Gañán
+4
se han devanado los sesos
Flows well
Lucía Uría (X)
+1
; elementos rudimentarios que dan por sentado que los extraterrestres pueden verlos.
Flows well
Lucía Uría (X)
Entry #31139 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Anastasiya Horyacheva (X)
Anastasiya Horyacheva (X)
Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.703.80 (5 ratings)3.60 (5 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 2 "like" tags
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
tu idioma
Good term selection
Marjory Hord
+1
1
pero que presupone que los alienígenas pueden ver
Flows well
Ana Lombao
Entry #31315 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Rioplatense
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0000
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Entry3.673.67 (6 ratings)3.67 (6 ratings)
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Entry #30922 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
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0000
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Entry3.633.25 (4 ratings)4.00 (4 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 2 "like" tags
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
famélico
Flows well
Vianney Hernández
+1
resista la prueba del tiempo
Flows well
Lucía Uría (X)
Entry #30637 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.453.33 (9 ratings)3.56 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 3 "like" tags
  • 2 users agreed with "likes" (3 total agrees)
+1
a trancas y barrancas
Good term selection
Miguel Magdaleno Santamaría
+1
te las arreglas para pedir algo que reconoces en el menú; comes y pagas
Flows well
Miguel Magdaleno Santamaría
+1
Pero igual que una radio terrestre debe estar sintonizada en la frecuencia correcta, también debe estarlo una interestelar. ¿Cómo conseguirían dar con la correcta los extraterrestres?
Flows well
Miguel Magdaleno Santamaría
Entry #30782 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
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0000
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Entry3.433.29 (7 ratings)3.57 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
  • 2 users agreed with "likes" (2 total agrees)
+2
a trancas y barrancas,
Good term selection
Anahí Seri
Entry #30764 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
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0000
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Entry3.323.13 (8 ratings)3.50 (8 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 2 "like" tags
cementerios radiactivos
Good term selection
Ana Lombao
en las sondas Pioneer 10 y 11
Flows well
Ana Lombao
Entry #31306 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Latin American
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.323.25 (8 ratings)3.38 (8 ratings)
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Entry #31159 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Argentine
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0000
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Entry3.253.25 (4 ratings)3.25 (4 ratings)
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Entry #31708 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Latin American
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.223.00 (7 ratings)3.43 (7 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
muriéndose de hambre
Good term selection
Vianney Hernández
Entry #31243 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Mexican
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.173.17 (6 ratings)3.17 (6 ratings)
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Entry #30679 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.133.00 (8 ratings)3.25 (8 ratings)
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Entry #30742 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.102.60 (10 ratings)3.60 (10 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
excursión
Flows well
Marjory Hord
Entry #31517 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.082.83 (6 ratings)3.33 (6 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 2 "like" tags
  • 1 user disagreed with "likes" (1 total disagree)
por las buenas o por las malas
Good term selection
Marjory Hord
-1
con mucha hambre
Flows well
inclusivo
Anastasiya Horyacheva (X)
Entry #31151 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry3.002.78 (9 ratings)3.22 (9 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
  • 1 user agreed with "likes" (1 total agree)
+1
lenguas
Good term selection
Anastasiya Horyacheva (X)
Entry #31181 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry3.003.00 (4 ratings)3.00 (4 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 1 "like" tag
te estás muriendo de hambre
Good term selection
Inclusivo
Anastasiya Horyacheva (X)
Entry #30728 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Mexican
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry2.933.14 (7 ratings)2.71 (7 ratings)
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Entry #31336 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry2.842.67 (6 ratings)3.00 (5 ratings)
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Entry #30925 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.823.00 (8 ratings)2.63 (8 ratings)
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Entry #31469 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Mexican
Benjamin Perez
Benjamin Perez
United States
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.752.75 (4 ratings)2.75 (4 ratings)
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Entry #30700 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry2.672.50 (6 ratings)2.83 (6 ratings)
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Entry #30883 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
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0000
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Entry2.632.50 (4 ratings)2.75 (4 ratings)
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Entry #30722 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
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0000
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Entry2.302.00 (5 ratings)2.60 (5 ratings)
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Entry #31235 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
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0000
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Entry2.302.20 (5 ratings)2.40 (5 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 1 user entered 2 "like" tags
  • 1 user disagreed with "likes" (1 total disagree)
-1
pero de alguna manera te las arreglas para pedir del menú algo que reconoces, comes y pagas
Flows well
Miguel Magdaleno Santamaría
la mueca
Good term selection
Miguel Magdaleno Santamaría
Entry #30994 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry2.251.75 (4 ratings)2.75 (4 ratings)
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 2 "like" tags
  • 2 users agreed with "likes" (2 total agrees)
  • 1 user disagreed with "likes" (2 total disagrees)
-1
+2
una excursión que no ha ido según lo previsto
Flows well
Anahí Seri
-1
periodista de la revista Wired
Flows well
Ana Lombao
Entry #31012 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Standard-Spain
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
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Entry2.252.25 (4 ratings)2.25 (4 ratings)
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Entry #30656 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry2.101.86 (7 ratings)2.33 (6 ratings)
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Entry #31501 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Venezuelan
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry1.821.80 (5 ratings)1.83 (6 ratings)
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Entry #31676 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Honduran
Voting points1st2nd3rd
0000
Rating typeOverallQualityAccuracy
Entry1.751.50 (2 ratings)2.00 (2 ratings)
Entry tagging:
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