Saying in Spanish
English translation: by their songs ye shall know them / you can tell a bird by its song / birds of a feather...
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| 09:27 Mar 18, 2019 |
| Spanish to English translations [Non-PRO] Art/Literary - Media / Multimedia / Subtitle | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Charles Davis Spain Local time: 12:51 | ||||||
Grading comment
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| 4 +2 | by their songs ye shall know them / you can tell a bird by its song / birds of a feather... |
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| Some bird expressions |
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Answers
20 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +2
peer agreement (net): +2by their songs ye shall know them / you can tell a bird by its song / birds of a feather... Explanation: Three suggestions, which is cheating, I know, but it all depends on the exact context and the tone you need to go for. If the actual meaning is unimportant and all you really need is a bird-related proverb or saying, then "birds of a feather (flock together) would be the obvious choice. If you need to reflect the actual meaning of the Spanish saying, paraphrased in your reference as "Se conoce la condición de las personas por sus hechos", then the one that comes to my mind is "By their works ye shall know them", which is perhaps a bit old-fashioned, but well known, I would say, and quite widely used. (For that matter, the Spanish saying is said to be "en desuso"). It's derived from the King James version of the bible, Matthew 7.19-20: "19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 7:16-20... And like countless quotations from the King James Bible and Shakespeare, it's become part of the English language, but often with "works" instead of "fruits". You could then adapt this by replacing "works" with "songs", which has been done more than once before: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1386377?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con... But if you think this is too obscure for your audience, you could always go for a more or less literal version: you can tell a bird by its song. It would be a bit lame, because it's not an established metaphorical saying in English, but you could probably get away with it if need be. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 22 mins (2019-03-18 09:49:42 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- The point about my first suggestion is that it only works if people know the original saying (by their works ye shall know them). You have to judge whether this will be the case. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 25 mins (2019-03-18 09:52:16 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- I don't think it's essential to use the word "bird", if they're looking at birds in the video at this point. |
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23 hrs |
| Reference: Some bird expressions Reference information: I tried running a search for bird-related expressions in English to see if I could find a suitable one to fit the context, but so far no joy… https://owlcation.com/academia/25-Bird-Idioms-Explained-to-English-as-a-Second-Language-Learners https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bird |
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