Translating a "empezar a + infinitive" sentence

Question

While doing Spanish lessons, I encountered the following sentence:

"Empezábamos a manejar cuando vi un carro venir hacia nosotros."

The software program I am using gave the following translation: "We were driving when I saw a car coming toward us."

I think the correct translation is: "We started driving when I saw a car coming toward us." (hence the word "empezábamos" indicating their journey had just begun).

What is the correct translation (whether one of those two or something else entirely)?

P.S. The only other thing I could think of is that, maybe, "empezar a + infinitive" works like "acabar de + infitive" and the sentence actually is best translated as: "We just started driving." Anyway, I would appreciate some help.

How far are you getting on RS? You are asking good questions. - 0083f5dc, May 31, 2013

Answer 1

We were beginning to drive when.....

Here is a thread on this very perífrasis verbales: Beginning to ____________

empezar + a + infinitive thread

This is a very good thread. It is best to respect translators but do not trust them - gohern, May 31, 2013

Answer 2

Your translation seems accurate to me, though I would defer to a native speaker.

If the software program merely wanted "We were driving," why not say "Manejábamos..."? The "Empezábamos" merits some translation, in my opinion.

The picture in question seems to have been trying to translate, with no reference whatever to anything Spanish, the Americanism, "We had just started out of the driveway", or something like that. - EugenioCosta, May 31, 2013

Indeed, the Ptolemaic language software in question is an encyclopedia of US clichés, in almost every language under the sun. A Neo-Liberal dream, of the very moistest sort. - EugenioCosta, May 31, 2013

Reading the founder's little account of how he invented his "language secret" is close to stand-up comedy. - EugenioCosta, May 31, 2013

Answer 3

The Scarlet Pimpernel's program is vastly better for beginners. Its only real limitation is that it seems designed almost exclusively for the business traveler.

Answer 4

Ptolemy also got native speakers of hieroglyphics with very "droney" and irritating voices, and made everybody smile, except when their car broke down or there was a fire in the office, when they put on conventional grimaces.

Be careful with this Ptolemaic program--it can be useful in a very limited way, but it can also cause various Deleuzian pathologies if taken too seriously.

Answer 5

It sounds like a sentence out of ancient history--something written on the Rosetta Stone?

As language learning software, the Rosetta Stone, which was a parallel text of Greek and Egyptian, left a lot to be desired. One of the translators of Ptolemy V, presented the whole of ancient Egyptian in terms of Hellenistic Greek--Hellenistic actors from the Capitol area, generic phrases based on Hellenistic Greek, pictures of strictly Hellenistic Greek activities and scenes....

Answer 6

http://www.joshpachter.com/pages/weans.pdf