I had noticed that this rule is not generally followed by the Spanish-speaking writer. I often have seen sentences that seem to go on and on, with just a comma or a conjunction joining the different thoughts. Why is this?
My teacher Lorenzo was telling our class about how "we Spanish people like to make a sentence, and then add more to it with de or que or en or a, and then add some more, and keep going on, all in the same sentence." He said that it's not uncommon to have three completely different, unrelated thoughts together in one sentence.
Suddenly two things I had experienced made sense! Once when I was having my writing corrected by a native Spanish speaker, he commented, "You need to write longer sentences." Another time I was reading something one of my tutors had written, and I wondered, "How can she be a tutor when she uses run-on sentences in her writing?" Now I understand!
The English rule of "only one thought per sentence" is not followed in the Spanish world. In fact, it's discouraged. Now I get it! Thank you Lorenzo!!
Nevertheless when I am translating from Spanish to English I dump about half of the commas, semicolons, "ands", etcetera and insert a few periods to make the translation sound more normal to English speakers. When I am writing in Spanish I stick more with the English rule of keeping thoughts separate, however, if I do think it appropriate I sometimes separate two thoughts with an ellipses...if one thought naturally follows another :)
ReplyDeleteYes, that makes perfect sense.
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