Bien Chabacano

In chapter six of El Diutay Principe (for me, one of the sad moments in the book), it is revealed that the little prince loves watching sunsets especially when he is sad. One of the challenges in translating this chapter was how to translate the word sunset . Rolando Arquiza Santos' dictionary provides us with three choices. a. caida del sol b. sumida del sol c. abajada del sol In El Diutay Principe , I decided to use the most readily understandable term which is abajada del sol . Unfortunately, I can't remember the word that they used for sunset  in TV Patrol Chavacano. I was surprised when I watched a recent episode and it doesn't contain a weather report anymore like it used to. I heard my cousin who grew up in a rural area of Zamboanga city use the word paso  ( step , not flower pot ) a few months ago when he was giving me directions and I told myself that I will definitely have to incorporate this word into my translation. This word appears in chapter...

There are different ways to use the word luego  in Spanish but not all of them can be applied to the Chabacano luego . A friend of mine who knows Spanish seemed to have mixed up Chabacano and Spanish when he told me:  baka compra yo cellphone luego... baka el mes que viene. In Chabacano, the above sentence means that my friend would be buying a cellphone later (as in within the day). Another friend who is trying to learn Chabacano told someone:  Luego, volve yo ole na España. He was so surprised when the person whom he was talking to answered him:  Okay. Adios! Happy trip! Tiene cuidao! My friend wasn't leaving for Spain right away! He meant that he would be doing it in the immediate future! I was so amused by these stories that I told myself that I simply have to write about how to use the word  luego  in Chabacano. As far as I can tell, the Chabacano adverb  luego  has three uses: 1. To express that something may happen soon a...

"Por medio del corazon lang ta puede mira enbuenamente. No puede mira el maga ojos si cosa el deverasan importante." This is undeniably the most popular quote from The Little Prince and I took great care in translating it into Chabacano because I wanted the Chabacano version to make the reader feel the same way as they would reading it in English. I used a Chabacano that's in between formal and casual, not too spanishy, and not too conversational either. Here is the quote in its original French: On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. Here is how it was translated in Spanish: No se ve bien sino con el corazón; lo esencial es invisible para los ojos. Here's how it was translated to Filipino by Desiderio Ching in 1991: Sa pamamagitan lamang ng puso makakakitang buti. Hindi kita ng mata ang pinakapuso ng mga bagay. Here's how it was translated in Bicol: An puso sana an makakahiling kan tama; an pinakaubo...

How can I not share this? When I listened to this lady sing, I was like WOW! Etu is a Chabacano translation of the Tagalog song Ikaw sang by Yeng Constantino. This video is a cover of the original Chabacano version. While there are now several Chabacano songs posted online, most aren't very good quality. Sometimes the audio is poor, sometimes the melody just doesn't sound right, sometimes it's the lyrics, and sometimes it's the singer. Etu is an exception to the rule. Not that it wasn't sung well in the original version but I just happen to like this cover better. I think it's mainly because she sung the song very smoothly while the original one was sung with too much passion that for me, made it sound like a sad or angry song when it's actually a very happy song (which I think is exactly what this singer was able to convey with her rendition). There are parts wherein the singer pronounces some words like in Spanish such as the word cielo (she h...