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Translation - art & business » Translation Theory and Practice »
Does Spanish have more leeway with sentence fragments?
Thread poster: spanruss
spanruss
spanruss
United States
Local time: 10:44
Russian to English
+ ...
Oct 14, 2016

I constantly find what I consider sentence fragments in Spanish. It makes me wonder if there is no strict rule against this, as there is in English. Here is just one example I ran across in a business letter today:

El suscrito [redacted] con hipoteca número [redacted] otorgado por el [redacted bank name] y con direcció en [redacted]. Bajo protesta de decir verdad declaro que no se presentó la declaración anual de impuestos 2015 por el motivo de que no estuve en EEUU más de 182 ... See more
I constantly find what I consider sentence fragments in Spanish. It makes me wonder if there is no strict rule against this, as there is in English. Here is just one example I ran across in a business letter today:

El suscrito [redacted] con hipoteca número [redacted] otorgado por el [redacted bank name] y con direcció en [redacted]. Bajo protesta de decir verdad declaro que no se presentó la declaración anual de impuestos 2015 por el motivo de que no estuve en EEUU más de 182 días.

Obviously I rendered this into a single sentence of "I, the undersigned . . ." in English. Again, is this considered poorly written in Spanish or does this hard-and-fast English rule not always apply to Spanish? ▲ Collapse
 
Merab Dekano
Merab Dekano  Identity Verified
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
It looks like a translated text Oct 14, 2016

[quote]spanruss wrote:

I constantly find what I consider sentence fragments in Spanish. It makes me wonder if there is no strict rule against this, as there is in English. Here is just one example I ran across in a business letter today:

El suscrito [redacted] con hipoteca número [redacted] otorgado por el [redacted bank name] y con direcció en
ed]. Bajo protesta de decir verdad declaro que no se presentó la declaración anual de impuestos 2015 por el motivo de que no estuve en EEUU más de 182 días.

Obviously I rendered this into a single sentence of "I, the undersigned . . ." in English. Again, is this considered poorly written in Spanish or does this hard-and-fast English rule not always apply to Spanish?


The first chunk lacks verb. It looks like there is a typo in there. By the way, it has to be "otorgada", not "otorgado" (la hipoteca). "Direcció" sounds Catalan. The proper word would be either "dirección" or even better, "domicilio".

In other words, the Spanish text isn't very well taken care of.


[Edited at 2016-10-14 18:37 GMT]
 
spanruss
spanruss
United States
Local time: 10:44
Russian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
My own typos Oct 14, 2016

"Otorgado" and "direcció" are my own typos, not the original author's.


[Edited at 2016-10-14 18:41 GMT]
 
Susana E. Cano Méndez
Susana E. Cano Méndez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 17:44
French to Spanish
+ ...
Spanish "legalese" Oct 16, 2016

[quote]spanruss wrote:

I constantly find what I consider sentence fragments in Spanish. It makes me wonder if there is no strict rule against this, as there is in English. Here is just one example I ran across in a business letter today:

El suscrito [redacted] con hipoteca número [redacted] otorgado por el [redacted bank name] y con direcció en
ed]. Bajo protesta de decir verdad declaro que no se presentó la declaración anual de impuestos 2015 por el motivo de que no estuve en EEUU más de 182 días.

Obviously I rendered this into a single sentence of "I, the undersigned . . ." in English. Again, is this considered poorly written in Spanish or does this hard-and-fast English rule not always apply to Spanish?


Hello spanruss.

It's just spanish legalese. Sentences may be fragmented into an unnatural speech, because it is (or it was) important to highlight some data, i.e personal data of the parties. On the other hand, it seems your text contains one fixed part (a form: "El suscrito... con dirección en") and a text written or transcripted ("no se presentó... 182 días"), probably in a hurry by a policeman or a judge, for instance.

Greetings.
 


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Does Spanish have more leeway with sentence fragments?


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