‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’
Nelson Mandela
Speaking is not just about conveying a message…
According to experts, even if we master a foreign language, the emotions we convey when we use our mother tongue are never the same as those we convey when we use a foreign language.
When we speak in our mother tongue, the message we are conveying implies feelings, a family history, a social legacy… which, although they are not explicit, end up in the subconscious of the receiver.
For this reason, for example, linguists advise speaking to babies in the language in which our parents or grandparents spoke to us, in which they sang our first songs… because all the intangible legacy that we transmit in doing so will become part of the baby’s personality and will contribute to its development.
This language that we learnt already in our mother’s womb and that we pass on to our children is the so-called affective language.
And the same happens when we sing…
Singing is, above all, about conveying emotions. Hence the importance of using, when we sing, not only our lips, but our whole body. A leg that moves forward, eyes that close, arms that open… will change the sound we make, but also the message we convey.
Likewise, the language we use when singing will also influence the emotions we convey. The information that we transmit when singing in a foreign language (no matter how well we know it) will never be comparable to the torrent of emotional, social, historical information that we transmit unconsciously when singing in our mother tongue (our affective language).
Sonority is one of the factors to be taken into account when translating a song, or rather, when adapting it to another language. But this is not the only factor. Below, we explain what the linguistic adaptation of a score consists of.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
The linguistic adaptation of a song requires a great deal of concentration, creativity and linguistic and musical rigour.
Translating a score is not translating it, but adapting it to another language.
Why? Because when we translate a score, a new element is added to everything we must take into account when translating any document (context, intention, tone, linguistic aesthetics, source audience, target audience, etc.).
This new element is music.
When music comes into play, there are many other factors to take into account, such as syllable count, rhyme, accents, sonority, intention, phrase endings, rhythm, distance-approximation and naturalness.
At the same time, even if we take musical factors into account, we will never forget the rules of grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation that govern any language.
The number of syllables in each measure must be the same in both languages.
When two sentences rhyme in the original, they should also rhyme in the translation.
All “strong notes” in a musical phrase must coincide with stressed syllables.
The words of a musical composition convey not only meanings, but also feelings. A cacophonous (unpleasant to the ear) sound will, for example, serve for a violent song, but a euphonic (pleasant to the ear) sound will serve for a romantic ballad.
The combination of music and words arouses feelings. When adapting a song into another language, we ask ourselves what the author of the piece of music wants to convey to his or her audience.
As far as possible, we will try to ensure that the most “important” sentence endings, or where the last note is very long, the sound is very close to the original.
The words we choose for our song in the new language must allow the interpretation of the song to keep the rhythm of the score.
Sometimes, as much as we want to be faithful to the original version, we will have to move away from it and create a practically new text (keeping, obviously, the original theme) so that the target audience accepts the translated song as their own and finds it natural to sing it.
Once the song is translated, we should sing it or ask someone else to sing it to see if it sounds natural to us. A song should never sound like a “translation”, but should sound as if it was written directly in the language in which it is being performed.
Trust a professional
to adapt
your music,
and enjoy performing
in your language
your favourite songs.