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Thread: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

 
  1. #1
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    Default HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    HELP!

    attempting to translate old Spanish article (old like 2005 old, not OLD old)

    phrase "coincide con un puente" comes up and I can't for the life of me figure out a good english translation...

    seems to have to do with "coinciding" or overlapping, like something serendipitously falling on a certain occasion where something else important is happening, but not completely sure...

    any help is GREATLY appreciated...




    PS this is my first post so sorry if this is not the appropriate forum...

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    Hey There

    Give us a bit of context, and the help will be waaay better...

    J.

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    La Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT) ha puesto en marcha a las tres de la tarde la Operación 15 de
    agosto, la más complicada del verano porque el cambio de quincena de vacaciones coincide con un puente.

    What I have is: " at three in the afternoon, The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) launched its 15th Operation of August , the most complicated operation of the summer due to its coincidental overlapping of with two weeks of summer vacations.


    But I'm certain this is incorrect...

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    Ok.. I can see why you have trouble with this bit.. The puente thing, is really not clear... But I think your interpretation is ok. Though the wording in your translation needs work. Overlapping "of with"??? Coincidental overlapping with the 2 week summer vacations, I would say.

    Regards

    J.

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    This is from an article directly out of El Pais, one the daily newspaper in Madrid, so I assumed that "coincide con un puente" is a highly SPANISH colloquialism.

    Also, thank you for pointing out my grammatical errors, hahah

    Thank you for the help, it is GREATLY appreciated, thank you SO much Joselas!!!!

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    Hi!
    Also, in some contexts, the word puente is any day that between a weekend and a public holiday.

    e.g. Suppossing October 12th is a public holiday and October 9th and 10th fall on a weekend and the government decides that October 11th is not a working day either, then, in that case, October 11th is a puente.
    What do you call this?
    Regards,

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    Contributing User gise1984's Avatar
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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    In Argentina, we call it "sandwich" but I'm sure that's totally inappropriate haha!

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    There is no expression for "puente" in US English. You would have to explain, maybe something like:

    ...two weeks of vacation extended to include a holiday during the following week...

    (Sadly, in the US most holidays are celebrated on Monday regardless of the actual date associated with the event so that we don't even need a word for "puente".)
    Last edited by mariaklec; 10-08-2010 at 04:14 PM.

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    Default Re: HELP! help with Spanish colloquialisms

    I agree with Guadalupe, we do use "sandwitch" for those days (just because they are in-between a weekend and a holiday).

    however, I think we still need more context, what sentence comes after the word puente? It is not clear to me whether it's referring to a holiday or an actual bridge. Sorry!

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