"Film ini dibintangi oleh kucing saya."
Translation:This film is starred by my cat.
11 Comments
415
You're right.
This is a literal translation.
It sounds very strange in English.
However, it can be said like that in Indonesian.
Passive constructions are used very often (more than in English I think).
I can't think of a good alternative English translation.
Ideas ? Suggestions ?
- 1140
Halo Mas Rick! Congratulations for participating in the Sang Tim Indonesia! :)))
I think the English present participle "starring" can be used here. There is a kind of inversion when using the verb "to star", so it is not the cat that stars the film, but the film that stars the cat. Other meaning of "starring" is "protagonist", so when using the active voice, "the cat is starring (adjective) in the film", "the cat is the starring role in the film" have a close meaning.
The past participle "starred" can have another connotation, as the verb "to star" can mean "to put a star / stars on something or someone", so being in another context, the use of "starred" is grammatically correct.
My suggestions, using the present and past tenses, are:
This film is starring my cat. (there is no need to use "by")
This film starred / has starred my cat.
In Spanish (sorry for using my native language here), these sentences are translated as it follows:
Esta película está protagonizada por (passive voice) mi gato.
Esta película fue protagonizada por / ha sido protagonizada por mi gato.
So, the Indonesian and Spanish structures are very close when using the passive voice in this sentence, while in the English there is an inversion of the subject.
From my point of view, "dibintangi oleh" translates as "starring" / "starred" in English active voice, and "protagonizada por" / "protagonizado por" in Spanish passive voice.
Here is a link with English to Spanish translations:
http://context.reverso.net/traduccion/ingles-espanol/starring
I hope it helps. :)
Rick, I read Diego's comments are his translations are fine; however, This film stars my cat would be a more common phrasing but still focuses on the cat as the subject ... a passive version that focuses on the film would completely change the sentence. (This is the film in which my cat was a/the star) Congrats on joining the team.
- 1376
Yes, the film stars my cat or my cat stars in the film. There is no passive.
This is going to be a common problem with Indonesian. There are many ways to structure a passive sentence in Indonesian that are perfectly fine in Indonesian but just don't translate well directly into English. I think it would be better to translate it into something that conveys the same meaning but still sounds natural in English, so long as the translations are consistent in this.
The English translation is very poor. The more common expressions would be either "This film starred my cat." or "This film stars my cat."
i cant understand the maning of this sentence. neither the indonesion nor the english one. is the cat playing in the movie?
- 1376
The problem is that, in English, we would use an active verb: my cat is starring in this movie.
The central issue is that "to star" works both ways. An actor stars in a movie, and a movie stars an actor.
The topic of the Indonesian sentence is "Film ini", so a good translation is still "This film stars my cat".
"My cat stars in this film" is reasonable, but switches the emphasis, so I think the first sentence is better.
