Help with an English to Spanish translation

Question

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this site so I hope this is the right place to ask about this. I am currently doing an English to Spanish translation, and I came upon this text:

“I seen this outfit which they ain’t never bot a dime’s worth of nothin from us and I sole them some goods. I’m now goin to Chicawgo.”

It is purposely on bad English, the problem is that as a Spanish native I can't fully understand the first sentence and I wonder if anyone here could help me have an idea of how this would be translated.

The context is that this sentence was written by a seller with bad grammar.

Can anyone help? Thank you in advance!

Welcome to the forum , we want to help you so fill out your profile If you have a problem PM a mod Bienvenido al foro. Queremos ayudarle, entonces hay que llenar su perfil. Si hay un problema, envíe un mensaje personal (PM) - ray76, May 30, 2015

My advice is to turn the sentence into correct English , then translate it into Spanish , and we can help you from there . - ray76, May 30, 2015

Hi, Ray, thank you! The problem is that I can't fully understand it. My attempt would be: "I've seen this ??? which has never bought a dime's worth of nothing from us and I sold them some goods. I'm now going to Chicago". - CisleyOrtiz, May 30, 2015

My guess is that "I seen this outfit" means "I saw this group of people" - Jubilado, May 30, 2015

My vote for filling in your profile for us. - ray76, May 31, 2015

Answer 1

Hello CisleyOrtiz,

Welcome to the SpanishDict forum

Yes, this sentence is certainly a good example of bad English lol ..it contains bad grammar:' I seen' ' never got' , slang. 'ain't' ,and bad spelling or typographical errors: sole (sold) Chicawgo (Chicago) and goin.(going)

“I seen this outfit which they ain’t never bot a dime’s worth of nothin from us and I sole them some goods. I’m now goin to Chicawgo.”

Looking at the context, as a native speaker, I think that this part of the sentence probably means

I have seen / or I saw ...this group who (or this business which.... ) has never bought anything of any value from us ...etc....

In British English we use the word 'outfit. in an informal way to mean a group of people

I can understand your struggle to translate the bad English in this specially chosen piece of text. Sometimes some people post questions and personal text messages they have received from boy friends and girl friends that have been so badly written in both languages, with little or no context given, that both Spanish and English natives struggle to make sense of them! Sadly, even some English speaking natives who visit and post here have such a poor grasp of how to write good English that even natives struggle to make sense of the text!

I hope this helps

Good on you Feliz! - Daniela2041, May 31, 2015

Thank you , Daniela :) - FELIZ77, May 31, 2015

Answer 2

Hi, Rac, thanks for your anwer! I think I just finished filling it. I'm a native Spanish speaker and fluent in English.

This was my attempt (please note bad grammar is on purpose):

“Encontre a este ??? que nunca nos a conprado nada y le bendi algunas cosas. Ahora estoy llendo a Chicago”.

Correctly written it'd be:

“Encontré a este ??? que nunca nos ha comprado nada y le vendí algunas cosas. Ahora estoy yendo a Chicago”.

Any idea of what "outfit" may be?

Thanks!

Thanks Cisley. The only thing I can surmise is maybe a set of clothes or maybe a group of people. Sometimes, "outfit" is used in that sense. - rac1, May 30, 2015

Group of people seems to work :) thanks a lot! - CisleyOrtiz, May 30, 2015

De nada. :) - rac1, May 30, 2015

Answer 3

"I have seen this outfit ( group / small business / group of traders / crooks, etc.) who have never bought anything of any significance from us, and I sold them some goods. Now I'm going to Chicago"

Depending on context, the word "outfit" can be pejorative and could mean any of the choices above. Also, the word "goods" can be straightforward or can also mean: poor quality items, stolen items, illegal or contraband items, etc.

Does this help?

Cheers

Thanks Padrin, I looked at this and I fear I had little idea what the English meant. - annierats, May 30, 2015

I think your answer is correct in this case, it is abad outfit, nasty people. My answer is also correct but another sort of outfit entirely. - annierats, May 30, 2015

Answer 4

outfit normally means vestido o traje. I quote, however:

Si hablamos del outfit de cierta persona tendremos que decir también que nos gustaron especialmente sus shoes, que su shirt no resultaba muy apropiada para la ocasión o que el color de la bow tie fue una metida de pata... ¿Aún hay quien piensa que utilizar términos en inglés viste de glamour su discurso?

El significado de outfit es ' el look'. Sorry, not the best answer ever given, but how does this translate?

Answer 5

Hello Cisley. Please finish filling in your profile. What is your level of Spanish/English. It is very bad English. It doesn't make much sense, so I'm asking you, how would you translate it. Post that and we'll see if we can help with corrections.