The five candidates for the Democratic Primary at the October debate in Nevada. Photo: CNN After two Republican primary debates, and significant difficulty in accommodating the massive Republican field - which ended up with the creation of a separate debate for unpopular candidates rather embarrassingly named the "kid's table" - it was finally time for the Democrats to have their own debate. And thanks to the fact that the debate was broadcast on CNN, we took the liberty of watching it (or at least part of it) on CNN's Spanish language affiliate. What we found out was truly astounding. Okay, not really. But here goes anyway.
1. "Debate" in Spanish is "debate". And "CNN" in Spanish is "CNÑ" Though many native English speakers balk at the idea of learning Spanish, learning to understand debates is surprisingly easy. And by that I mean that learning to understand the word "debate" in Spanish is surprisingly easy - it's spelled exactly the same in Spanish, though pronounced differently: "day-bah-tay". But for some reason, CNN has branded itself in Spanish as "CNÑ". What does that stand for, Cable News Ñetwork"? What is a ñetwork anyway? With the ñ, it would be pronounced "nyetwork" which makes it sound oddly Russian. 2. Bernie Sanders sounds weird dubbed with a Castilian accent For much of the debate, Bernie Sanders was shown as making his speech dubbed with a voice speaking in a Castilian (i.e. Spanish from Spain) accent. For me, it was a kind of weird cognitive dissonance - almost as if one of the candidates for US president had started speaking in a British accent. I joked on Twitter that Bernie en español was urging listeners that "nethethitamos mas regulathiones" (we need more regulations). And when asked about Wall Street, I was half expecting the Spanish dub to blurt out "joder, tío!" - which for US English speakers would be the equivalent of hearing "bloody rubbish, mate!" 3. Interpreting a debate is reallllly hard Sure, the candidates were all under pressure to do their best in the debate. But the Spanish interpreters had an equally difficult job of trying to capture distinctly English-language phraseology and slang in a way Spanish speakers could get. And often, it just wasn't possible, even for the seasoned team of interpreters CNN (or should I say, CNÑ) put together. At one point, it sounded to me like one of them was gasping for breath. 4. Spanish speakers outside the US are shocked that American women don't get maternal leave Later in the debate, Hillary scored a few points by mentioning the fact that, at the federal level, the US is sorely lacking in paid maternity leave for women. This is a fact that's staggering, especially when you look at how maternity leave is handled in Spanish-speaking countries around the world, most of which have more robust maternal leave laws than the US. 5. Latinos haven't made up their minds about the Democratic candidates yet CNÑ's post-debate coverage featured a number of interviews with Spanish-speaking Americans, pretty much all of them Latinos. And the overwhelming consensus among them was that they hadn't made their minds up yet. Though the Democratic party is generally seen as being friendlier to Latinos, Republicans have the advantage in that some of their candidates are actually Latino. However, it remains to be seen whether this actually means they will be better for the general Latino population - Ted Cruz, for instance, is know for his bombastic anti-Mexican statements (and also for trying to ingratiate himself to Republican voters by cooking bacon with a machine gun). |
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