Reader Reviews for El gato en el sombrero/ The Cat In The Hat:
|
Customer Rating:  
Summary: Teacher Review: Not true to Dr. Seuss's literary style
Comment: Dr. Seuss's books are known for their rhyme and and whimsical characters. This translation DOES NOT succeed in achieving the lyrical style in Spanish. Any Dr. Seuss books translated by Aida Marcuse or Yanitzia Cannetti are fabulous because they ARE able to maintain the lyrical rhyme in Spanish. I hope one day that one of those two translators does their magic with The Cat in the Hat. In the mean time, I just read this one to my son in English. The sequel, El Gato con Sombrero Viene de Nuevo, (I believe is the title), is translated by one of these ladies and is fabulous.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Great, but Not Awful Either...
Comment: This is a fairly literal translation of The Cat in the Hat that provides both the English and the Spanish text on each page. The original rhymes are often lost, but the rhythm is retained in places. This is a challenging story to read aloud if your Spanish reading level is low.
The reason that I am giving it FOUR stars is because I believe that it is a pretty decent translation given the constraints posed by the original text. If one reads it as prose, rather than verse, it's a tolerable story. The purpose of the original The Cat in the Hat was to improve literacy, which is something that this translation also does for non native Spanish speakers. This is not the best book to read to babies/young children, but it is a great tool for older children and adults who are trying to improve their Spanish.
Yes, the translation of Green Eggs and Ham is more faithful to the spirit of the original. There are, however, much worse translations into Spanish of Dr. Seuss books (e.g. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish). I bought this book to read to my daughter, but I have found that it has been most useful in improving my spoken Spanish.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Teacher's two thumbs down
Comment: The translation of this book is horrible! It is literally translated and doesn't even rhyme. Dr. Seuss would be very disappointed!!!
Try "Huevos verdes con jamón".
Customer Rating:
Summary: No Spanish rhyme, but still worthwhile
Comment: Even though the Spanish portions don't rhyme, I still found the book a worthwhile tool for working with those gaining proficiency in reading the Spanish language. Because it doesn't go to lengths to make it rhyme, the English concepts are easier for beginners to find in the Spanish wording, and the words are easier to grasp the meaning of without a dictionary.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The 1st part is great, but...
Comment: I remember buying and trying to read this book as a young whippersnapper, so I thought I would pick it up for my nephew as a reward for keeping his pants up at school. After receiving this book in the mailbox (I prefer not to use e-lectric mail since I don't trust the darn thing), I realized this is not the same book that was printed 46 years ago. The first part is great and all, but I definitely do not remember the 2nd part. This might be some of Seuss' most eccentric work. Most of the words don't make sense, and don't even correlate to the illustrations. I guess the proofreaders came to work drunk the day they read this pile of horsefeathers. The book blatantly reuses the same illustrations from the first part of the book (as filler I guess), and there's all sorts of spelling errors. I even saw an upside down exclamation point. How'd they miss that one, let alone type it? I don't see that key on my typewriter. I'm not sure if they thought kids would get this far in the book or not. Yes, I understand how the world works these days; everyone's out to make a buck, but come on, they obviously added a bunch of incoherent filler pages so they could charge a premium for the book. The children are your CUSTOMERS, and you just ripped them off, Mr. Seuss.
|
|
