Oct 16, 2017 12:23
6 yrs ago
1 viewer *
Spanish term

Poco imaginaban los atribuidos precursores

Spanish to English Social Sciences Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc.
This little section is causing me much grief. I will break it up into a couple questions. The whole thing is a problem, nu the main problem areas are "Poco imaginaban los atribuidos precursores" and "cómo vaya instrumentándose su papel".

Castilian Spanish to UK English

TIA!! :)

Orignal
...si algo parece seguro es que un ingrediente dominante del futuro va a ser la Red. O, dicho de otra manera, todo tiende a evolucionar adherido a cómo vaya instrumentándose su papel. Poco imaginaban los atribuidos precursores por dónde acabaría discurriendo la realidad que trataban de impulsar… poco más de medio siglo atrás.

VERY rough draft
...if anything is a certainty, it is that the Internet will play a dominant role in our future. Or, put another way, everything tends to evolve according to how its role is played. Little did they imagine where the ascribed precursors they tried to promote would lead to only a little more than half a century earlier.

Discussion

S Ben Price (asker) Oct 18, 2017:
I thought it was pocos as well at first. But this is a construction (poco...) I'm not familiar with.
Chema Nieto Castañón Oct 18, 2017:
Poco Poco modifies imaginaban; (ellos) poco imaginaban = (ellos) nunca habrían imaginado. They hardly imagined (what was later to happen)

Here, los atribuidos precursores works as subject of imaginaban:
Los atribuidos precursores poco imaginaban (nunca habrían podido imaginar) lo que iba a suceder.

You could use, as you suggest, pocos as subject;
pocos imaginaban lo que iba a suceder.
But that is a different story...
Francois Boye Oct 16, 2017:
@ Asker

Una pregunta: POCOS o Poco imaginaban?
Francois Boye Oct 16, 2017:
@ Asker

Una pregunta: POCOS o Poco imaginaban?

Proposed translations

+6
25 mins
Selected

Little did those now considered to have been the forerunners

imagine that ...

one possibility
Peer comment(s):

agree Robert Forstag : I think “little did those supposed forerunners” would be tighter here (but this does not differ enough from your proposal to warrant a separate entry).
32 mins
agree neilmac : Little did they imagine how it would end up...
2 hrs
agree MollyRose
8 hrs
agree Marcelo González
13 hrs
agree Muriel Vasconcellos
20 hrs
agree Chema Nieto Castañón : yes, supposed forerunners; little did those supposed forerunners imagine...
1 day 12 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks!!"
+3
6 hrs

Those accredited as its pioneers could not have imagined

Those accredited as its pioneers could not have imagined where the reality that they tried to [...]

The subject of the original sentence is los atribuidos precursores. This suggestion switches up the syntax a bit but I think it sounds more natural.
Peer comment(s):

agree MollyRose
2 hrs
agree Robert Carter : Nice.
7 hrs
agree Alex Ossa
19 hrs
Something went wrong...
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