Merica'

1. How would you describe the "American Dream"?
1. The "American Dream" to me is having the opportunity and ability to work hard to achieve personal success. In addition, a foreign perspective may view the American Dream as freedom, religious freedom, freedom of speech an element of American culture that draws many people to America, as well as equality, and democracy. My current "American Dream" would be to go to college and finish my degree to the fullest, and pay as little as possible. The price of everything has gone up since my parent's days. My mother's "American Dream" was to get out of her small town Georgia life. Now, she sees all of her kin and the way their lives "are all crazy", not like our undramatic city life in Raleigh. There's no cell service, no WiFi they're all disconnected from the world and deep in everyone else's business.
2. What is your definition of wealth?
1. Wealth, I would like to think, is the accumulation and possession of things that have intrinsic value, versus marketable value. I perceive one thing as being very valuable to me, whereas another person may only see it as its price. However, now that the cost of living is so high in America, I find that my purpose behind college, my "American Dream" is for the accumulation of money, wealth. I did not wake up one day and think I want to be in college for a third, maybe even a half of my life. I go through college just to pay off college...to pay for shelter, safety...the basic needs to survive my whole life in an expensive world.
3. What are Americans' attitudes toward wealth and poverty?
1. Americans want to be successful. Most people define success as the accumulation of large amounts of money to supply the needs, as well as, the wants of their lives, to live comfortably. Wealthy people have lots of money, therefore most Americans idolize them because of their success. Americans do not want to live in extreme poverty because there is the opportunity of a higher quality of life. Most think Americans are lavishly entitled and live a comfortable way of life.
4. What is your attitude toward wealth and poverty?
1. I think that you want to achieve an amount of wealth to live comfortably, provide for children, supply my retirement. I think being wealthy is having a lot of something; whereas being rich deals a lot more with money. I would love to be wealthy rather than in poverty. Poverty has a lot of aspects like social, political, and economical. I wish that poverty did not exist, that everyone could have equal opportunity, to achieve their own "American Dream". 

Translation Please

1. As Gregor Samsa  awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

• Diction:
• "transformed"
• more dramatic, specific to appearance
• "insect"
• formal/scientific word
• "found himself"
• no control over the transformation
• Syntax:
• "in his bed"
• creates a separation between "transformed" and "gigantic insect"
• Imagery/ Details
• "gigantic insect"
• creates an overwhelming visual
• Structure:
• lack of commas
• the sentence is rushed because there are no commas

2. Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a gigantic bug.

• Diction:
• "Gregory"
• more applicable to an American audience
• "changed"
• different than before
• "bug"
• informal
• I associate "bug" with "ladybug", so to me this word has a more positive connotation than "insect".
• "find himself"
• his transformation was a surprise
• Syntax:
• Concise, logical 
• Imagery/Details:
• "gigantic bug"
• I think of the movie "Honey I shrunk the kids" and how larger than life the insects were.
• Structure:
• Simple

3. When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.

• Diction:
• "troubled"
• there was a cause for his dreams
• "he found he had been"
• wordy, passive
• Syntax:
• "in his bed"
• creates a separation 
• Imagery/Details:
• "enormous bug"
• I think of the movie "Honey I shrunk the kids" and how larger than life the insects were.
• Structure:
• Starting with "When Gregor..." emphasizes on the him not 

4. One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

• Diction:
• "agitated"
• more negative
• "monstrous"
• very negative, terrifying connotation
• "vermin"
• very negative connotation
• Syntax:
• use of commas
• separation of ideas, causes detachment
• Imagery/Details:
• "monstrous vermin"
• I imagine an aggressively large insect.
• Structure:
• "one morning... upon awakening.."
• seems redundant because I feel like one wakes up in the morning

Response:

I think the fourth sentence definitely creates a dramatic tone to the sentence because of the choice to use extreme, terrifying connotation "monstrous vermin" instead of the "gigantic" or "enormous" "bug" or "insect".  Also, the addition of some many commas create a dramatic pause and emphasizes the transformation as well. Whereas the second sentence I feel gets the meaning across, but fails to creates meaning because of its casual tone. This tone is also exemplified in the third and first sentence, detracting overall value of the sentence. The third sentence seems too wordy compared to the other translations to convey meaning. This I fell results in a lack of understanding of the scene for the audience. The first sentence the audience is immediately engaged into the sentence, without a formal introduction.   

Translating another language is very difficult to do because I feel like there's a loss in meaning in translation to the English language. Languages, like Spanish go further in meaning and define gender. In Mandarin there are four different tones that create four different meanings. There are different rules conveyed for each language.