Río de la Plata

21:40 Dec 21, 2009 

Since the author is from Argentina and with all due respect to the British I don't see why an old translation should be favored. I live in Montevideo and I always translate it as Río de la Plata. I'm visiting Montreal now and I'm looking at an old map in French and Rio de la Plata it is here too.

06:13 Dec 21, 2009 

..though it bears that name in Sp; it is a broad estuary and the region that surrounds it.

00:04 Dec 21, 2009 

I've only just noticed that you're translating Echeverría. Sorry, careless of me. In this case I agree with Rosa, Carol and you. In his time 'River Plate' would have been the normal use in English.

22:37 Dec 20, 2009 

I feel it should either be River Plate or Rio de la Plata (with accent of course), ie, either the EN rendering as perhaps used at the time, or left in the Spanish. One more thing would lead me towards the latter, which is that I presume that the characters are all Spanish speakers - albeit translated into EN. If, on top of that, the action takes place in a Spanish-speaking region, then I'd use the Spanish name to retain the exoticism. But if this is dialogue, and it's coming out of the mouth of an EN-speaking character, then I'd consider using the English name. Lots to think about!

22:26 Dec 20, 2009 

Hi Elizabeth: you could do worse than to refer this to Monica Algazi, who lives there - practically on the estuary (with apologies to Monica, as I've lost the use of certain diacritics in the Internet!)

22:20 Dec 20, 2009 

Elizabet: tengo un interés personal por la Historia, especialmente la de Latinamérica. Ultimamente he leído historiadores de habla inglesa y "River Plate" es el término usado. It is definitely NOT 'Silver River'; I am certain you only other option is to leave the original name in Spanish.

22:05 Dec 20, 2009 

I'd also go for the original Spanish, but wouldn't rule out River Plate, depending on the context/period/target.

21:03 Dec 20, 2009 

It's a bit awkward using both "The..." and "La" together. The idea is to use one or the other, so that the translated text still flows seamlessly. But perhaps that your "the" above was unintentional?
For the same reason, you wouldn't use both "Rio" and "River", as in Mariana's suggestion: "Río de la Plata River"

20:54 Dec 20, 2009 

For several reasons, I think "the La Plata River" is the best option. Added: I was under the impression that this short story took place in colonial times, and I think if that were the case you could use "the La Plata" (with the English article) to impart the translation with some flavor of "antiquity". However, looking back at the original posting I see no evidence of this at all, and really the type of story and the setting in time and place would be the determining factors to decide how best to handle the name of this well known region.

17:57 Dec 20, 2009 

Agree with Carol, Paul and Jim

17:06 Dec 20, 2009 

that's true - I hadn't taken into account that it's a short story, and I agree with the last comments of both Jim and Paul

16:38 Dec 20, 2009 

I agree with Jim Tucker. The reader should—at the very least— be able to handle the four word phrase now in common English usage: Río de la Plata.

16:30 Dec 20, 2009 

I strongly advise against glossing in a short story.

15:54 Dec 20, 2009 

As this text isn't about modern times, it wouldn't matter if you use an "antiquated" term, if indeed that is the case. In fact, it might even be preferable, depending on the register of the rest of the text

15:50 Dec 20, 2009 

normally, I would never translate proper names (especially for tourism - which doesn't apply here). However, Rio de la Plata is well known, and has been for many centuries, in the English-speaking world as "River Plate" - and definitely not "Silver River". You could use either the English name or the Spanish name (whichever best suits the text or outsourcer's preferred style), glossing in brackets at the first mention, thereafter using either River Plate or Rio da la Plata - whichever you have decided on.

15:11 Dec 20, 2009 

with Leonardo -- except that no explanatory translation in parentheses is necessary. Just use the Spanish name. "River Plate" is generally restricted to BE anyway (hence you risk having a lot of readers with no idea what this is) and a bit antiquated at that.

14:41 Dec 20, 2009 

Leave it as Río de La Plata (the most you could do is to put a translation note:Silver River). Eso es lo que haría.