Bilingual Paper

My father-in-law is a mortician, and I work for him part-time, picking up bodies. A few months
ago, I received a call to go pick up a body near Salt Lake. I had a date planned with my wife that
night, so I grabbed the keys to the minivan and left promptly. I arrived at the family’s home,
picked up the corpse, and headed back to Pleasant Grove. I was running late and needed to hurry
so that my wife and I wouldn’t miss our dinner reservations. It was rush hour on the I-15, and a
crash had slowed traffic down. I desperately made my way over to the carpool lane, even though
I had no passengers. A few minutes later, the devastating lights of a cop car lit my rearview
mirror. The officer came to my window, and I asked why he had pulled me over. “The carpool
lane is only for vehicles with two or more passengers,” he replied. “So, why’d you pull us over
then?” I countered as I gestured to the corpse. The officer laughed and headed back to his car to
write my ticket. However, he returned empty-handed. He had consulted with his fellow officers
over the radio, and they thought my comeback was so funny that they convinced him to let me
off the hook.

Mi suegro es director funerario, y trabajo para él a tiempo parcial, recogiendo cadáveres. Hace
unos meses, recibí una llamada para recoger un cadáver cerca de Salt Lake. Tenía planes de salir
con mi esposa esa noche, entonces cogí las llaves de la minivan y me fui de inmediato. Llegué al
hogar de la familia, recogí el cadáver, y me dirigí de nuevo a Pleasant Grove. Corría tarde y
necesitaba apurarme para no perder nuestra reserva para la cena. Era la hora pico por el I-15, y
un choque había parado el tráfico. Me hice camino al carril de carpool, aunque no tenía ningún
pasajero. Unos minutos después, las luces devastadoras de un coche de policía me iluminaron el
retrovisor. El poli vino a mi ventanilla, y le pregunté por qué me había detenido. “El carril de
carpool es sólo para vehículos con dos o más pasajeros,” respondió. “¿Entonces, por qué nos
detuvo?” rebatí mientras hice un gesto al cadáver. El poli se rió y volvió a su coche para
escribirme una multa. Sin embargo, regresó con las manos vacías. Había consultado con los otros
polis por el radio, y pensaron que mi réplica era tan chistosa que lo convencieron a que me
perdonara.

This assignment helped me learn a lot about the translation process. First, I learned that it is very
hard to not be controlled by a source text's words. It is very important to translate meaning rather
than form. For example, at the end of the story I had to translate “off the hook” to “a que me
perdonara” because a word-for-word translation would not be understood by a native Spanish
speaker. Second, I learned that it is often easier to rephrase things in your native language so that
the idea is easier to translate into the second language. Throughout my story, I rephrased the
English sentence so it would be easier to translate into Spanish.