Punctuation for translation into English

Question

I'm translating "En serio, ¿150 años y todavía es pronto para una broma?" Should I keep the comma, or should I use another question mark, a dash, or an ellipsis? Or is it not that important?

"Seriously, 150 years and it's still too soon to make a joke?" "Seriously? 150 years and it's still too soon to make a joke?" "Seriously-- 150 years and it's still too soon to make a joke?" "Seriously... 150 years and it's still too soon to make a joke?"

Thanks!

Answer 1

They all sound fine as it is a pretty casual sentence for which there is no particularly prescribed punctuation. To the extent that you want to "go there" and get all technical, we'd first need choose a translation that doesn't follow the Spanish literally.

At the core, it is endeavoring to be a compound sentence, which is two independent clauses connected by a conjunction. However, the problem is that even though you've got one independent clause ("it's still too soon to make a joke"), the other part is a clause fragment. Because it lacks a verb and subject, it can't serve as the independent clause the sentence needs in order to use the "and" conjunction the way you have it. You could make it into a prepositional phrase ("After 150 years, you still..."), but since the general point of the sentence in Spanish seems to be to set up two things that are both true and then use sarcasm to highlight the incongruence, and we are ostensibly aiming for translational accuracy, it's probably better to fix the fragment and add a subject and a verb to the "150 years" part and make it fully independent: "It's been 150 years."

Now we're cooking with fire! On to the other stuff.

The "Seriously" part is fine as an interjection, as we are still dealing with a casual sentence. It's fine either as a standalone interjection, or as part of the main sentence. As a standalone interjection, you'd simply end with an exclamation mark or question mark. As a part of the main sentence, you set off with other punctuation such as a comma, dash, or ellipsis. To wit:

• Seriously?
• Seriously!
• Seriously,
• Seriously--
• Seriously...

Any of the above would work.

The number "150" is fine. Write out with letters single digit whole numbers (zero to nine), and use the number characters for numbers 10 or greater. When a number greater than nine begins a sentence, it's often better to rewrite the sentence so that the number appears elsewhere in the sentence, rather than spelling out the number simply to avoid a sentence starting with digits.

My version:

Seriously? It's been 150 years and it's still too soon to make a joke?

Seriously...it's been 150 years and it's still too soon to make a joke?

The ellipsis gives the extra pause you need if you want to keep it one sentence. A comma is fine in the Spanish version because the "¿" also lends a bit of structural separation between question and interjection.

And that, my friends, is how you utterly drown yourself in unnecessary detail for no particular purpose whatsoever.

Or, in other words:

Seriously...20 minutes thinking about this and you ended up with a result that nobody could possibly find interesting or useful?

En serio, ¿20 minutos pensando en esto y te quedaste con un resultado que nadie no podría encontrar ni interesante ni útil?

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Gets my vote :-) But of course, this line is all about the delivery. It loses its punch when written. - PeterRS, Feb 27, 2013

Seriously! - MyHeadAboveWater, Feb 27, 2013

Answer 2

With all due respect to Julian, I thought that all of your punctuations were okay.

They all have a slightly different way they would be delivered, but the message would still be conveyed.

My only concern is with starting a sentence with a numerical number. This isn't really considered good form in English. You might say, "Seriously! One hundred and fifty years and it's still too soon to make a joke."

And, if what you are discussing is the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln's freeing the slaves, yes, it is still too soon to joke about it.

Answer 3

English punctuation can be problematic, but I would use an exclaimation mark after "Seriously!" then a new sentence starting with "150" and question at the end. But if you are asking if someone is serious, then "Seriously, ..........................?"

Also in the Spanish variant the comma after "serio" is not necessary because of the following inverted question mark.