– How are poetry and song lyrics translated from their original language to other languages without losing the rhyme scheme and meter?
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If the song starts in English, it’s actually pretty easy.
Many other languages have conjugations that are more regular, and thus easier to rhyme.
Translate something from English to Spanish for instance, move the verb to the end of the sentence, and a lot of things suddenly rhyme.
In English, we respect things that have at least 2 rhyming syllables at the end. It’s a bit of “literary license” to imagine that the words “chomping” and “saying” rhyme, for instance, even tho they both end in -ing. We have countless vowel sounds – short, long, diphthongs, and triphthongs that can precede the -ing, so we CANNOT say that as a rule, all gerund verbs rhyme. Not even close.
In Spanish, almost ALL gerund verbs will end in either -Ando or -Endo. 2 forms, that’s it. All of a sudden, “loving” rhymes with “talking” and “dancing” and “singing”.
When I want to rhyme things that “you” do, well most 2nd-person singular verbs end in -As or -Es. So “you” can do many things which I the author can make rhyme in Spanish that wouldn’t rhyme in English.
My Spanish class taught us pop-culture translation via Boyz II Men, who famously recorded many of their hits in both English and Spanish.
“Nada es igual /
Si no estás aquí /
Porque no puedo /
Vivir sin tí.”
– El Final del Camino
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