Is this interpretation true to spirit?
“Los salarios están siendo devorados por una inflación sin control. Incumpliendo los más elementales deberes de las instituciones ocultan las cifras, que todos los analistas sitúan por encima del 140%. Nadie, ni los más partidarios del Gobierno, desconocen que un dólar vale más de 700 bolívares en la calle, que es donde vive o sobrevive la gente, y no la ficción oficial de 6,30 bolívares por dólar.”
“Salaries are being eaten up by uncontrolled inflation. Shirking the most elementary institutional duties, they hide the figures, which all analysts place over 140%. No one, not even the most hardcore government supporters, deny that a dollar is worth more than 700 bolívars on the street, which is where the people live or survive; and not the official fiction of 6.30 bolívars per dollar.”
The Spanish is from El País ( http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/08/20/opinion/1440079949_687917.html ).
The first clause of the second sentence is what prompted me to ask this question. To whom does "ocultan" refer? Should there be a comma between "instituciones" and "ocultan"? The two sentences together form the entire paragraph. I'm thinking that it refers to government officials who don't want to publish bad news. Have I messed up the entire meaning of the paragraph? i think not, but wanted to check with all you great folk.
3 Answers
Ocultan, refeer to the institutions, they hide the info Of the inflation, and yes, a comma is needed there. The comma is used when a sentence is too long, and give the reader or speaker a pause. You translate deny as desconocen, use the word "niegan", desconocer means dont know something, "negar, niegan" means that you don't accept/recognize something.
I think it´s a typo, it would make more sense to say: Incumpliendo los más elementales deberes de las instituciones [comma] ocultan las cifras [no comma] que todos los analistas sitúan por encima del 140%.
Ocultan is congugated this way because this is a form of depersonalizing the unspoken subject (ellos). This has the same effect as passive voice, but with a subject in which nobody is identified.
Desconcer is used well, it´s the same as ignorar.
Then I presume that I got that part correct.. that the "institutions" are the government. After all, they/it are the ones most capable of collecting and collating the data; and would be the ones to most benefit in the short run by hiding the results.
"Desconocen" is part of the original quote from the article. Perhaps the writer should have used "hegar", but he/she did not. Would a better interpretation have been "No one, not ...even the most hardcore government supporters, do not know that...."? Yes, that makes more sense.
Muchas gracias, EleRo.
