Sentence of the day-terminar con esto?
Hay que terminar con esto cuanto antes.
We've got to put a stop to this as soon as possible.
There are a couple of things that bother me about this sentence even though I know it is correct. Could you not substitute "a" for "con"?
Also, the translation says "we" so how is that distinguished?
1 Answer
Both the sentence and the translation are perfectly correct. The impersonal "hay" does not translate comfortably into English. A possible translation, if you want to keep it literal, would be: " This has got to be dealt with as soon as possible".
However, to my ears, the way it is written is correct and sounds more natural. In terms of the intention transmitted, it is exactly the same.
And you cannot write "terminar a esto", because it wouldn't make sense. If you look at my literal translation, it may become clearer to you: "con" translates as "with". "Deal with that", not "deal to that".
Having said all that, it is important to always keep in mind that translation is an art, where a thinking person uses his or her criterion to interpret the meaning of an expression. The goal is to transcribe it into the target language in a manner that approximates the same feeling, and conveys the same mental image, as in the original language. This is why automated translations tend to be flawed. They only work when a literal translation is adequate or possible.
