"...marveling at the noises that made up their words..."

Question

I am writing an important biographical essay for my Spanish class and need some help with a translation.

I had my essay proofread by a friend's mother (who is a native speaker and a Spanish tutor/teacher) and she did a fantastic job but I'm worried that her corrections have caused my original sentence to lose its full meaning.

Translated to English, the sentence I had in mind should mean something along the lines of:

• I walked down the furrows in a pair of used cowboy boots, listening to the workers and marveling at the noises that made up their words.

My original sentence reads as follows:

• Caminaba por los surcos en un par de botas camperas usadas, escuchando a los trabajadores y maravillando de los ruidos que se componían sus palabras.

My sentence as corrected by my friend's mother reads:

• Caminaba por los surcos en un par de botas camperas usadas, escuchando a los trabajadores y maravillada de los ruidos que hacían sus palabras.

I understand where she's going with the correction by changing the verb "maravillarse" from the gerundio (meaning "marveling") to the participio (which from what I understand changes the meaning to "amazed by"), but I'm not sure if the sentence really flows with this correction. However, I am not a native speaker so my perception of what flows in English may very well sound awkward in Spanish.

Can someone offer me an opinion over whether or not to change my original sentence to the proofread sentence? Also, what do you all think of her correction which changes "se componían" to "hacían"?

Thank you so much for reading this everyone! I thoroughly appreciate any and all opinions/suggestions/corrections and insight into how to better word my essay. =]

Sincerely,

Alyssa

Answer 1

Yo usaría "sonidos" en vez de "ruidos", a menos que fuera un sonido desagradable.

"... los sonidos que hacían..." es la forma más habitual de decirlo, ya que casi siempre utilizamos el verbo "hacer", aunque tambien podrías decir: "maravillada de los sonidos que producían/originaban sus palabras".

"...que componían sus palabras" no está mal, aunque no se suele utilizar. Yo no lo utilizaría al hablar, aunque puede que sí en un texto escrito.

Yes, "sonido" is sound, whereas "ruido" is noise, and can have a negative connotation. - missy8888, Mar 12, 2012

Gracias a todas! Entonces uds prefieren que uso "maravillada" en vez de "maravillando"? - AlyssaLTerry, Mar 12, 2012

Si lo prefieres, podrías decir: "escuchando a los trabajadores y maravillándome de...". También suena bien así :) - Cordobesa, Mar 12, 2012