Rebecoming
¿Cómo se diría el siguiente en español?
"America is rebecoming a New World."
"América está volviendo a ser un Nuevo Mundo"?
Pienso que "América" es mejor que "Estados Unidos" en este caso porque el concepto del Nuevo Mundo original tuvo que ver con todas las Américas, y la frase de arriba es casi un juego de palabras con ese concepto.
A propósito, esta es una cita de Rama Yade, la ministra menor de derechos humanos en Francia.
12 Answers
Based on the French, I think that James' secondary point/comment about using "America" (rather than "The United States") is valid. The French are perfectly capable of saying les Etats-Unis (and usually do) when referring to the U.S. I'm not asserting that they never say l'Amerique to refer to the U.S. but, considering the whole sentence, I think it's better to preserve the ambiguity/historicity of "America".
The Spanish version of the AP story just says "Estados Unidos ha vuelto a ser el Nuevo Mundo." -- which I suppose James is going to label quotidian, pedantic, and un-original
No, not pedantic. 
OK, so my attempt was pretty close. Actually, it was closer to the English and French versions, since the Spanish puts it in the present perfect tense.
Interesting!
The Spanish version of the AP story just says "Estados Unidos ha vuelto a ser el Nuevo Mundo." -- which I suppose James is going to label quotidian, pedantic, and un-original
samdie said:
I found a reference to the quote. "j'ai entendu ramayade ce matin sur ITV dire l'amerique redevient LE NOUVEAU MONDE ET ..." (someone else is speaking/writing) "I heard Rama Yade this morning on ITV say America will again become the New World and ...". It's definitely "the New World" not "a new world" and, equally definitely, it's referring to New World vs Old World. A French/Spanish dictionary should resolve James' question, as should a reply from a native Spanish speaker. In the interim, I'll propose "rehacerse".
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I found a reference to the quote. "j'ai entendu ramayade ce matin sur ITV dire l'amerique redevient LE NOUVEAU MONDE ET ..."
(someone else is speaking/writing) "I heard Rama Yade this morning on ITV say America will again become the New World and ...". It's definitely "the New World" not "a new world" and, equally definitely, it's referring to New World vs Old World. A French/Spanish dictionary should resolve James' question, as should a reply from a native Spanish speaker. In the interim, I'll propose "rehacerse".
"America is becoming a New World" definitely sounds funny...
Indeed, since it misses the point entirely. America was the New World five centuries ago, and the whole point of Yade's comment was that, in one respect, it has regained that status now. It may be an exaggeration, but I wanted to see how it would be expressed in Spanish.
Here's an article in English where it just says "America is becoming a New World."
I realize we're pretty far afield from James's original question about Spanish, but this is interesting because it illustrates the potential complexity when we're actually dealing with three languages.
"America is becoming a New World" definitely sounds funny . . .
Maybe we should say this: America is reverting to New-World. (just kidding)
Natasha said:
Here's the report in French, but I can't read it. I want to know if the original French has the same surprise-the-listener feel.
Right speaker. Possibly, the right subject matter. Wrong article. There's nothing in the article that's remotely like "America is rebecoming a New World".
My guess would be that the original would have employed a form of "redevenir" which, indeed, means "to become again" but the French are happy using a single verb (rather than a phrase). It's a fairly common word in French.
That link doesn't include the quote I gave, although it is from the same interview, since some of the things in that link were also in the article I read.
By the way, it's interesting to note that she said "Je crois que ce matin, nous avons tous envie d'être Américains" (I think that this morning, we have all become Americans), and "Je crois que Barack Obama n'appartient pas ce matin à l'Amérique seulement, mais à l'ensemble du monde" (I think that Barack Obama belongs this morning not just to America, but to the entire world).
Are you trying to reduplicate the effect in Spanish of using a speaker-coined word?
Here's the report in French, but I can't read it. I want to know if the original French has the same surprise-the-listener feel.
James Santiago said:
I assume she was speaking in French (I read the quote in English), but my question isn't about the English word so much as how the idea would be translated into Spanish. Whether it's in the dictionary or not, rebecoming seems perfect to me in this context, and I like it much better than the more quotidian "becoming again."
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I assume she was speaking in French (I read the quote in English), but my question isn't about the English word so much as how the idea would be translated into Spanish. Whether it's in the dictionary or not, rebecoming seems perfect to me in this context, and I like it much better than the more quotidian "becoming again."
Ni yo tampoco. ¿Hablaba Rama Yade en francés o en inglés?
Why talk this way? I checked, it´s not in the dictionary. In my opinion, "America is becoming a new world again" sounds better. (Going out on a limb . . . )
tad said:
Ni sabía que 'rebecoming' existe en inglés :-(
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Ni sabía que 'rebecoming' existe en inglés :-(
