Daryo Apr 21, 2023:

OK... I remember a case of someone writing on purpose a whole book without any punctuation, or at least without a single full stop. Even gave some elaborate justification for doing so in an interview.

So how would you translate that? By being a stickler for The Chicago Manual of Style (or whatever is your local diktat about "good writing") or by staying close to the author's style?

If "you" is repeated so often in the first draft translation a reasonable assumption is that that reflects the repetitions in the Spanish text.

BTW however the "avoid repetition" rule could make sense in most cases, you have to know when to ignore it, otherwise you turn it into a "silly rule". The most idiotic (I use the word on purpose) case I've seen is of one "no repetition" zealot who wanted to alter a contract because a key term (with a precise legal meaning not interchangeable with anything else) was "repeated too often" and wanted to replace it by several legally meaningless supposed "synonyms".

Peter Gooss Apr 18, 2023:

Quite frankly I'm not sure how we could possibly be expected to help the OP out here when the source text is not presented. There's a general mood, rhythm, and sound that each source text carries and in order for us to help we'd need to be able to see what that looked like. Furthermore, we all inevitably add our own edits and style as we translate, and we would need to be able to compare the two together to see what changes might be necessary.

philgoddard Apr 17, 2023:

The asker has posted another question without responding to our requests for context for this one.

However, the later question appears to be from the same text. It's in Spanish, and is written in the second person singular. so he can repeat "you" as many times as he likes.

Jennifer Levey Apr 17, 2023:

@FPC @Christine - please read the question! @Asker wrote: ... a short story I'm translating from Spanish.

@FPC:
... in this case the author's style trumps yours.
Where have you seen anything that illustrates the Spanish author's style? Asker has posted his own draft translation into English, expressed doubts about his own repetitive use of 'you' - and asked for ideas about how it might be edited to reduce that repetition. We cannot Keep(ing) with the original style to the fullest extent possible ... - because we haven't seen the Spanish text!

@Christine:
... how could that effect be created (by different means?) in Spanish?
Asker is not trying to create anything in Spanish - he's translating into English.
As you say, there are various motives for repeating 'you' in English - but in this case 'you' is repeated solely because Asker hasn't found a good way to avoid it. And he is unhappy with the result. And that's why he's posted his question.

FPC Apr 17, 2023:

This is literature/fiction Whatever the reasons, the "you"s are there and YOU should respect the author's choice. It's not a matter of who writes better or correcting a student's copy. This is an author and chose, just like Henry James loved unusually long convoluted sentences, his literary device.
You don't capitalize all the initial letters in translations of e.e. cummings's poems, just to give another example. You leave them (and him) alone.

Christine Andersen Apr 17, 2023:

How to translate what is between the lines Why is the ´you´ repeated so often, and how could that effect be created (by different means?) in Spanish? Why has the author chosen ´you´ instead of he or she or the person´s name?
Rewriting it in English would alter the meaning between the lines, or the atmospheric effects, which are so important at the start of a story.
Here it is neither addressing the reader, nor indicating a repeated regular action, which would be normal uses of ´you´ in English.
It is not used here as a gender-neutral pronoun for people in general, and other languages do not use their forms of ´you´ in that way.

I read it as a way of trying to get ´inside´ the person and the situation. Without the rest of the text, I cannot say more.
I do not know any Spanish, either, but I agree, it would be wrong in any language I know to repeat the ´you´ so many times, and it would be necessary to find some other way to create the same feeling.

I think of the man who reacted to ´when you are pregnant ...´ with ´God forbid! I have a wife for that kind of thing!´ :-) :-) :-)

FPC Apr 17, 2023:

@ all I'm with Daryo on this. This is a literary work, not a press release, an article or any other document, essay or other informative piece of writing. Style is of the essence. Keeping with the original style to the fullest extent possible, is a duty in a literary translation in my opinion. As said, I'm all for translation being rewriting in a way, but in this case the author's style trumps yours.

Christopher Schröder Apr 17, 2023:

“Silly no repetition rule” Different languages have different concepts of good writing. In English, we avoid repetition unless we have a very good reason.

OP You can just take out the “you” if you don’t like it. It’s your writing, your choice, not theirs.

philgoddard Apr 16, 2023:

I'd like to see the Spanish. I don't know how Daryo knows what it says.

English does avoid repetition, but it may be perfectly OK here.

Jennifer Levey Apr 16, 2023:

@Daryo It's plain obvious that the author has done it on purpose, ...
No it isn't! Asker's English text could be back-translated into Spanish using no more than one (at most two) 2nd-person pronouns. The other occurrences of 'you' will be 'understood' from the context (and/or verb endings) and may well be omitted in Spanish.

We can only be sure the author 'did it on purpose' if the same repetition is indeed there in the Spanish original.

Daryo Apr 16, 2023:

"Any alternative/ideas so as no to repeat YOU so many time"

WHY would you want to change that???

It's plain obvious that the author has done it on purpose, it's not your business to "adapt" the ST to suit your own "style guidelines".