montó un representante a la Cámara de su cuerda (Colombia)

10:46 Aug 23, 2018 

I foolishly failed to appreciate that "representante" is indeed ironic, in that it invites you to read it as meaning a representative of herself rather than of the people.

10:44 Aug 23, 2018 

I'm well aware that "managed to get an ally elected as a 'representative' to the Chamber of Representatives" would be redundant and continue agreeing with Muriel's answer

16:37 Aug 19, 2018 

I think Ronald's interpretation of the sentence is right but it cannot be translated as proposed for the reasons we have already discussed. IMO, the idea of representative is still lost if it says:
'managed to get an ally elected to the Chamber of Representatives'
What about finding a solution along these lines:
managed to get an ally elected as a 'representative' to the Chamber of Representatives? The ST says: 'montó un representate'

22:04 Aug 18, 2018 

Thanks for your (always) thorough review of practices in translating institutional names. It is always a thorny issue.
A cursory search shows that the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, the OAS, and numerous country profiles, including the one published by the US Central Intelligence Agency, use 'Chamber of Representatives'. I have worked for all these agencies except the CIA. (I also taught S>E translation for 14 years at Georgetown University.)
It's true that 'House of Representatives' also shows up, but I avoid it for the reason that Charles mentions -- namely confusion with the US House of Representatives, which appears often in worldwide news.

11:11 Aug 18, 2018 

Whatever is used, IMO, 'Representatives' should be included to reflect the irony.

11:07 Aug 18, 2018 

It is colloquial, and it does mean she used her influence to get him/her elected.

When you look at the detail of Colombia's system, it's not quite as simple as I suggested before. For one thing, the regional factor is potentially important. Politicians tend to have regional/local power bases; they have given favours to locally powerful people, and so on. In Colombia there is a list for each department, and a candidate "sponsored" by a locally influential party boss stands a good chance of success. The open list is a preferential voting system, where voters vote for a party but can express a preference for a particular candidate, which can change the order of candidates in the list. But of course getting on the list in the first place can be due to the influence of a sponsor, and that may be what "montó" refers to.

10:53 Aug 18, 2018 

The senator Holguín cannot literally appoint a 'Representative'. Representatives to the House of Representatives in Colombia are elected by the people per district, etc.; if I am right similar to MPs in the UK.
Montó from montar acc. to RAE: 1. Ponerse o subirse encima de una cosa. 2. Subir en un caballo u otra cabalgadura, etc... 'Montar' is a colloquial term in this context and it is the same with 'cuerda'. Montar does not mean appointment at all but here the term implies that she used her influence to 'get the Representative' elected. However, implying that she appointed him to get on the horse :)

10:52 Aug 18, 2018 

With that proviso, let me also say, in purely general terms, that what professors say is not inevitably right. I used to be one myself, and although I always tried to give students reliable advice, I was — and am — sometimes wrong.

10:47 Aug 18, 2018 

Please note that I am not disagreeing with the idea of researching the equivalent title, but simply with automatically using the nearest equivalent, however approximate, regardless of other considerations. A judgement has to be made.

10:44 Aug 18, 2018 

There are different schools of thought on whether institutional names and terms should be translated by their equivalents in the target country/culture. Personally I think great caution is required here. For one thing, "equivalents" are often not exact, and a misleading impression can be created by using them. More generally, the specificity of the institution in the ST can be lost or obscured. Custom also has a certain weight here.

In this particular case I think Colombia's Cámara de Representantes can reasonably be translated as House of Representatives, and there is certainly very widespread agreement on using that translation. I wouldn't give much weight to what the Cámara calls itself in English, but I would give some, for example, to the fact that the Inter-Parliamentary Union uses that translation. On the other hand, custom isn't everything, and I can't see that there would be anything wrong with calling it the Chamber of Representatives. The trouble with "House of Representatives" is that this name comes with baggage attached: it makes you think of the US House of Representatives and suggests that the Colombian one is just the same, which is unlikely to be entirely true.

10:20 Aug 18, 2018 

Looking back on my study days, my professor always said: 'never translate the title of an authority or a company without researching the equivalent title in the other language' :)
I agree with this. If the 'Cámara de Representantes de Colombia' uses the official title of 'House of Representatives' why not use it? There is also a 'United States House of Representatives'.
Yes, there are 'Chambers of Congress' in USA but this is not the equivalent to the 'Cámara' in Colombia.
IMO, using 'House of Representatives' helps to convey the irony of the sentence, otherwise the idea of the Representative gets lost in translation.

08:22 Aug 18, 2018 

It can't literally mean "appointed". It is not possible for someone to appoint a representative to the Cámara. Representatives are elected. Appointment, as I say, can only arise with closed lists, where the electorate votes for parties, not candidates, and people can be appointed by the party to an advantageous position on the list which ensures that they will be elected. But that doesn't work with open lists.

08:18 Aug 18, 2018 

I think "managed to get" is a good way of handling this. I'm not sure that "montó" is being used here ironically, except in the general sense that it is ironic that in a democracy people can get elected because they have powerful friends in the party. Holguín is a power-broker in the Centro Democrático. How exactly does such a person get someone elected? In the UK system they could get the person assigned to a "safe seat": people of no perceptible merit but influence in the party get chosen for constituencies where the Labour or Conservative candidate is bound to win. But Colombia has proportional representation. In a PR system, a party can guarantee that a particular candidate will be elected if it has closed lists. And the CD used to have closed lists, but in the most recent election it opted for open lists, where electors can vote for particular candidates. So what does "montó" mean? It must mean that she endorsed the candidate and her influence with voters made people vote for that candidate.

03:53 Aug 18, 2018 

I tried to capture that idea with 'managed to get'. See update in my answer.
Not sure I agree with you about 'House of Representatives'; my clients (international organizations) prefer to stay as close as possible to the original rather than try to find an equivalent in a different culture.

00:18 Aug 18, 2018 

agree with Stuart and Aida on this

23:54 Aug 17, 2018 

The idea of appointment is ironically implied in montó