Newspaper story - Beatriz Gil

Are there strange creatures living in Fallen Angels?

Fallen Angels is a city located on the interior of Oklahoma, EUA. It was the exactly image of a countryside city: there are no more than 10,000 habitants; the most important monument is a central square where we can find the church. But this image of tranquility was the scenery of one of the most funny thing happened on the last decade.
October tenth, at one third a.m., an unconsciousness man came to the public hospital “Saint Patrick James” carried by three teenagers, all of them between fifteen and seventeen years old. No one was able to respond what happened to the fainted guy.
“I was walking on the street with my girlfriend. We were on the corner when an enormous animal, a werewolf jumped of a tree and fell over me. I was desperate and started screaming. After that, I do not know what happened. I was in a hospital when I wake up a nurse who was checking my temperature told that I had passed by an enormous emotional disturbance and blacked out” – said John Garred, a mechanical of twenty eight years old, approximately three hours after his access on the hospital.
The story spread quickly in the hospital and lots of people crowd in front of the werewolf victim door. But the general confusion ends when John’s girlfriend, the student Jessica, eighteen years old, burst furious into the hospital.
“Werewolf? Is that a joke? That enormous werewolf in reality was two funny boys wearing a wolf costume. If this clown didn’t black out, he would see the kids burst out laughing.” – She answered angrily when listen to the story of a werewolf walking around the city.
Until the sunrise, the parents of the teenagers responsible by the joke lecturing them and Jessica broke up with John, the motive: “no one wants date a dolt”!

Editorial - Changes in USP: good or bad? - Beatriz Gil

In this letter, I would like to make some consideration about the article "Changes in USP" published on 09.22.2010, in the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. The article was about a reformulate pretending b USP in its curriculum.
USP has seen its budget increase about 40%, because the increase of state money in the over past five years. It was know that this increase, however, was not reflected in a development of scientific output in the university. Regarding the quality of the courses existing in this university, it is impossible to do a measurement because the USP refuses to participate in the Enade, an examination of the Ministry of Education that could compare it to other Brazilian institutions.
It was recently published a ranking electing the best 500 universities around the world, which USP is 232rd. Incontestably, this is an important mark for Brazilian teaching, but also this may be an indication of a lag in some aspects of the college, such as incentives on research, one of the criterion to make the ranking.
As a public university, USP cannot abdicate the task of cultivating and spreading a kind of knowledge that cannot find space on the banks of private colleges. For this reason, in my view, it would be more interesting another kind of changes.
Besides the review of careers, the rector of the institution, João Grandino Rodas, announced its intention to curb the increasing number of graduate vacancies, which rose 50% in the last eight years. Will it be a good change?
Interestingly, the rector is conscious that these changes may not be favorable to the University and impair the quality of education. Now it remains await the results of this analysis, see what the measures are taken by the university and hope that it propels towards an improvement.

The mysterious hitchhiker - Beatriz Gil

A few days later, Carlo went back to find that mysterious beautiful girl. He went next to the building where the girl stopped. There an old woman with pale face was staring the building and crying her heart out. Worry, Carlo approached of the woman and asked if everything was fine; she looked at him and started to tell a long story. She had a twenty years old daughter, Anita, that one day, couple of years before, was walking next to that building and was hijacked and murdered. He asked how the girl looked like and, surprisingly, the description corresponded exactly of the girl who Carlo borrow his jacket. Incredulous, he thought it was a coincidence and gave up of look after the girl.
Three months later, it was the death anniversary of Carlo’s mother, and then he went to the cemetery to put some of her favorite flowers, white lilies, on the grave. After some time on the cemetery, he decided to go away. As he was leaving the cemetery, something caught his attention. Full of suspense, he walked into another grave. When he was closer, he noticed the thing that caught his attention: his own jacket on another gravestone! When he picked it up, he almost had a heart attack; on the grave stone he saw the photograph of Anita, and now he was sure: she was the girl he had given a lift to. Since then, Carlo goes to the psychiatrist once a week.
 

Newspaper Story - Beatriz Reis

The sleepwalking thief

            For several weeks the citizens of Crookston, in Minnesota, have been puzzled by the vegetables that were missing every morning at the only market in town. They were extremely intrigued by the fact that every day at least a whole sack of tomatoes was just gone, and nobody knew how it happened, or who could be responsible for the thefts, for the city was always peaceful and secure.

            “We never considered it could be anyone from Crookston. I mean, everybody knows each other here, there was no way it could have been one of us”, said Mary Parker, the owner of the robbed market.

            The gossip about the thefts was spreading, and Parker was about to fasten her place a few more padlocks, when one night Harold Goldman, 53, was found in his basement peeling hundreds of carrots at 3 a.m., dressed in his pajamas. His wife was shocked by the scene, and before waking him up, she is sure to have heard him exclaim, “A very, very good soup for everyone!”

            The mystery was then solved when all the vegetables, which had been stolen during the night by a sleepwalking Goldman, were found in his house. But nobody knows yet how he managed to get into Parker’s market, not even the thief himself. “I never knew I was a sleepwalker. I don’t even remember dreaming about a soup!” he attested, blushing slightly. He paid everything his dreams owned to Mary Parker and became the newest myth around the city. Goldman is the owner of Crookston’s book store, and he is considered to be a beloved person to everyone in town. Being a sleepwalker only added to the affection of the other citizens towards him.

The mysterious hitchhiker - Beatriz Reis

The mysterious hitchhiker

            She never left Carlo’s thoughts though, for he kept thinking about that beautiful yet ghostly face for days after he had seen her wandering alone. She was so quiet, but her silence wasn’t normal; it filled the air with absence. Carlo couldn’t tell why it happened, but every time that unique ride came back to his mind, he had goose bumps.

            Intrigued by that young girl and how different she was from any other he had met, he had knew that getting his jacket back would be a perfectly reasonable motive for him to go back to that narrow street and meet her again. Carlo looker for her, but since she wasn’t there, he decided to ask about her to a neighbor. However, the old lady who lived next door told him that no such girl had ever lived or stepped into that building, and slammed the door in his face.

            Even more interested with the girl’s story, and fearing to have had hallucinated, he decided to go back to the cemetery, where she had been when he first saw her. He followed her steps, and the more he walked, the more he came to notice the details of the scenario to which he was heading: the road was made of stoned with different patterns, remaining of the time of the Roman Empire. Carlo raised an eyebrow and then started walking faster, not for one minute he doubting the answer he had been looking for so avidly and which those patterns in the stones were now giving him.

            He finally got to the alley, and then to the apartment. He tried the handle, and surprisingly, the door was open. Right in front of him was a wide window through which he could see the Coliseum. Content, he sighed with relief, and left.

Indenizar e acepções em língua inglesa

Hi Louise and everybody,

I copied a text talking about the possible translations in English (according to the context) for the verb "indenizar" im Portuguese. It was taken from the site http://www.migalhas.com.br/LawEnglish/74,MI80671,41046-Indenizar+e+suas+acepcoes+em+lingua+inglesa

Take a look. Maybe we can also discuss on your translation in your "Letter to the Editor". What´s more, you can also file it in case the term comes up in a translation.

Regards,

ADriane

Indenizar e suas acepções em língua inglesa

Em português, o lexema indenizar corresponde a 'reparar, compensar, ressarcir' (Aurélio).

Em inglês, há diversas traduções para o termo indenizar. A tradução mais adequada dependerá sempre do contexto.

Entre as possibilidades de tradução há mais de 40 possíveis correspondentes – sempre dependendo do contexto.

No caso do correspondente indemnify, por exemplo, de acordo com Santos¹ (2007):

"indemnify (v.) Mais fiel à etimologia, o v. ing. guarda noção de prevenção e proteção prévia, e não só a de reparação ou compensação posterior; traduz-se por proteger, segurar, dar proteção legal contra: It was a plan indemnifying workers against time loss trough illness, Era um plano que segura os/dava cobertura aos operários contra faltas por doenças."

Como a indagação da semana não contempla um contexto específico, agrupamos algumas acepções de indenizar em inglês a partir de campos semânticos definidos por termos em português retirados de corpus compilado em Carvalho (2007).

a) Restituir

1) give back

2) pay

3) pay back

4) redeem

5) remunerate

6) return

b) Reparar

7) answer for

8) make good

9) make good against anticipated loss

10) make up for

11) offer compensation

12) offer reparation

13) offer satisfaction

14) restore

15) redress

c) Reembolsar

16) repay

17) requite

18) return money paid out

19) refund

20) reimburse

d) Isentar de responsabilidade

21) save harmless

22) hold harmless

23) answer for

24) secure against damage

25) secure against loss

e) Indenizar por perdas e danos

26) give satisfaction for damage

27) give satisfaction for injury

28) pay compensation

29) pay reparations

30) recompense

31) recompense for past loss

32) compensate

33) compensate for injury

34) compensate for loss sustained

35) make good, make good against anticipated loss

36) make reparation

37) make restitution

f) Indenizar em dinheiro

38) grant monetary compensation

39) pay monetary compensation

40) make monetary payment

g) Assegurar (indenizar quantia paga por seguro)

41) indemnify

42) guarantee

43) insure

Por fim, lembramos aos leitores que, para responder à pergunta de qual a melhor tradução para um determinado termo do português em uma língua estrangeira, qualquer que seja, é sempre necessário examinar o contexto em que o determinado termo ocorre. Só assim é possível apresentar traduções idiomáticas, isto é, traduções em uma linguagem que naturalmente ocorre em inglês e que não desperte estranheza no público-alvo da tradução.

Referências:

a) Santos, A. S. (2007). Guia Prático de Tradução Inglesa. São Paulo: Campus Elsevier.

b) Carvalho, L. (2007) A tradução de binômios em contratos de common law da linguística de corpus. São Paulo: FFLCH/USP (Corpus compilado em dissert. Mestrado)

_______

¹Além de ser um excelente guia de tradução em língua geral, Santos (2007) também traz diversos verbetes com informações relativas à linguagem jurídica em inglês

LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR LETTER AND PARTICIPATION

Hi everybody!

I´ve just arrived from Porto Alegre and, to my surprise, few students took part in the the task of writing the letter as well as posting comments on the other classmate's paperwork.

Anyway, I don't give up. I expect that, until tomorrow, more students will be engaged in the activity.

See you,

Adriane

Justin Bieber punches foreigner fan in a concert

[NEWSPAPER STORY]

Justin Bieber: 'I have no clue of what happened to me.'

The Canadian pop-R&B teen singer Justin Bieber hit a fan last Saturday (09) during a concert in Colombia. Jasminda Velásquez won a competition promoted by a TV channel which would give to the winner the opportunity of singing a song with Justin on the stage. According to sources, Justin was extremely irritated by the fact that the girl pronounced his name wrong.

‘It’s Justen! Jus-ten!’, repeated constantly Justin Bieber. As the girl was unable to say it correctly, the singer lost his mind and punched her in the face. Jasminda collapsed and was taken to the hospital, while the fans started rioting. Then Justin was taken away from the stage; naturally, the concert was ended immediately.

One day later, Justin apologized to Jasminda and to the rest of his Colombian fans. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. I have no clue of what happened to me. I just wanted people to know how to pronounce my name right. Is it that impossible to say Justen? I don’t think so.’

His manager Scooter Braun defended him. ‘Justin is tired and has been working hard. It’s his first world tour; he is not used to it yet, therefore he had a stress crisis. We have to be more understanding to him.’

Jasminda was shaken; her family didn’t want to comment what happened. But they indicted Justin Bieber for aggression and personal injury. The singer will have to indemnify them in $ 10000.

The mysterious hitchhiker

Carlo was intrigued by that mysterious girl. He was still trying to understand who she was, what took her there, why she was there, wearing such thin dress in such cold winter night. He was thinking so much about that, that he just couldn’t sleep at night for days – and, when he was able to sleep, she appeared in all his dreams: dead. That really worried Carlo, so one day he decided to find her to check if she was okay.

In the morning, he drove to that old narrowed street of Rome. There was an old woman passing by – then he decided to ask her about the mysterious hitchhiker. And when he did it, the lady opened her eyes wide and didn’t say anything. She was about to leave without saying a word, when Carlo stopped her; he needed to know what was going on. She gulped, then said: “Are you sure we are talking about the same green-eyed girl who used to live over there? She was abandoned by her jealous boyfriend in the road and froze until death a couple years ago. And what is strange is that she was found days later wearing exactly that dress.”

Carlo shivered; then he thought the old lady was raving and left. He decided to forget that girl.

Three months later, Carlo drove to the cemetery to put some red roses on his mother grave – the very same cemetery where he saw the mysterious hitchhiker nearby. As he was leaving the cemetery, he shivered when he noticed his jacket hanging on a gravestone. When Carlo picked it up, he noticed that something fell from it: the photograph of the green-eyed girl he had given a lift to. Same shy smile, same gaze, same dress.