Can Someone Help Me Read a Children's Book?

UCDVet

I found some public domain children's books online, written in Spanish. I'm trying to learn.

Anyway - I'm stuck on this:

Se llamaba Tairon, o Tairon el Horrible, como le decía casi siempre. Era sólo un niño, pero mucho más grande y más fuerte que la mayoría de los otros.

The part in bold is what I don't understand.

I've used a few online translators and they translate it as 'As I said almost always'. But it doesn't make sense to me.

Heathen

Can you share the link of where these books can be found?

I would be interested myself

H

Blackhorse Slim

Hi, only a beginner myself, but from the context wouldn't it be "as HE almost always said"?

UCDVet

Heathen wrote: »

Can you share the link of where these books can be found?

I would be interested myself

H

Sure - I found them at: http://www.childrensbooksforever.com/childrenpages/Spanish.html

They only have six books in .pdf form and the scan quality isn't so great...but the price is right

The book I'm trying to read is the first one (Tairon El Horrible)

http://www.childrenslibrary.org/ also has some books in Spanish, but it doesn't seem like they let you download them.

UCDVet

Blackhorse Slim wrote: »

Hi, only a beginner myself, but from the context wouldn't it be "as HE almost always said"?

Ahh - that would make more sense. So, does that mean he almost always called himself 'Tairon el Horrible'?

Belmono

Hi!
The closest English translation would be 'as he was almost always called'. Normally the Spanish would be 'decían' (lit. they used to call), but I think the singular gets the same across also.
Decir normally means 'to say' or 'to tell', but has a special meaning of 'to call' here.

playedalive

Se llamaba Tairon, o Tairon el Horrible, como le decía casi siempre. Era sólo un niño, pero mucho más grande y más fuerte que la mayoría de los otros.

I would have translated it as. His name was Tairon or Tairon the Horrible, as he was called most of the time.

The decía was confusing to translate. Not sure whether there was an extra person, from your context. Spanish doesn't really do passive/ non-person related sentences well. If I remember my translation classes in my college degree, you either say 'como le decían casi siempre' or 'como se le decía casi siempre'. Don't get too caught up in what I just said. Only when you feel you really want to know the grammar, then do it.

Magico Gonzalez

playedalive wrote: »

I would have translated it as. His name was Tairon or Tairon the Horrible, as he was called most of the time.

The decía was confusing to translate. Not sure whether there was an extra person, from your context. Spanish doesn't really do passive/ non-person related sentences well. If I remember my translation classes in my college degree, you either say 'como le decían casi siempre' or 'como se le decía casi siempre'. Don't get too caught up in what I just said. Only when you feel you really want to know the grammar, then do it.

objects, objects everywhere... indirect ones and direct ones!

*se* <le> decia - literally = " <to him> *it* was said". What would be a "lo" becomes a "se" to prevent confusion. Lo le decia sounds to horrible even for the gallegos.

Borges was always criticising the Spanish for their lax approach to indirect and direct object pronouns ! He believed the Argentines and other South Americans managed it more correctly, unusually more in accordance with the demands of the REA. You can't really drop the "se"

Belmono

Magico Gonzalez wrote: »

objects, objects everywhere... indirect ones and direct ones!

*se* <le> decia - literally = " <to him> *it* was said". What would be a "lo" becomes a "se" to prevent confusion. Lo le decia sounds to horrible even for the gallegos.

Borges was always criticising the Spanish for their lax approach to indirect and direct object pronouns ! He believed the Argentines and other South Americans managed it more correctly, unusually more in accordance with the demands of the REA. You can't really drop the "se"

Just a minor clarification on this (though this level of grammatical analysis may cause a bit of a headache for beginners) - the structure 'se le decía', as playedalive suggested, is one of the ways Spanish typically avoids passive. However, Magico's analysis is slightly inaccurate: 'se' isn't replacing 'lo', as 'se' would only replace indirect objects, not direct objects. What Magico says about combinations of pronouns beginning with 'l' is true, though - they're not tolerated in Spanish.
The 'se' is actually part of an impersonal construction - the 'se decía' is an equivalent of 'was called'. The 'le' in the 'se le decía' structure is a very tricky thing to explain. Normally you would consider objects of the verb 'decir' to be indirect objects (eg LE digo la verdad - I tell him (or her) the truth). However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, 'decir' is 'to call' here, so in essence it's a direct object.This raises another problem - normally Spanish uses 'lo' for a male direct object, but Peninsular Spanish (well, most varieties, although the further south in Spain you go, the less likely it is) also uses 'le' for a male direct object (ie a person, not a masculine singular noun such as 'el libro' (the book). The original form from the children's book suggests the book was written in Spain.
Forgive the rather detailed explanation - hopefully it will help the OP as their studies develop!