Aug 26, 2015 11:30
8 yrs ago
3 viewers *
español term

El retablo policromado

español al inglés Otros Arte, artes manuales, pintura
This is from a maths problem in a 1º ESO course book. Does this only have a religious context, or could I use something like multi-coloured panel? Or any other suggestion?

TIA

Discussion

matt robinson (asker) Aug 27, 2015:
@ philgoddard
See context in my original posting
philgoddard Aug 26, 2015:
Please could we have the Spanish context. If it's a religious object, "altarpiece" would work.
I think 11-year-old Spanish-speaking students may have similar problems understanding "policromado", but this is just my opinion. And it's a course book, not an exam, so they could always look up the word in the dictionary. No harm in learning new vocabulary! :-)
If it's a maths book, focus on using words the students can easily understand. I'd go with "multi-coloured panel". "Retable" is the actual translation, but I doubt they'd understand that, either, and unless the fact that it's a work of art is relevant to the problem, I wouldn't worry about them understanding that.
matt robinson (asker) Aug 26, 2015:
yes, I was wondering about polychrome. The course book is for 11-year-old non-native English speakers, so I wasn't sure if polychrome was as accessible.

Proposed translations

1 hora
Selected

polychrome panel

Although the word "retablo" has religious connotations, in your context it may not matter so much if you don't translate it literally as "altarpiece". However, I would personally use "polychrome" instead of "multi-coloured", as it looks like we are referring to a work of art, and this would not be so obvious if you used "multi-coloured".

See DRAE definitions below (I don't think entry number 3 would be relevant in this context):

http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=retablo:
1. m. Conjunto o colección de figuras pintadas o de talla, que representan en serie una historia o suceso.
2. m. Obra de arquitectura, hecha de piedra, madera u otra materia, que compone la decoración de un altar.
3. m. Pequeño escenario en que se representaba una acción valiéndose de figurillas o títeres.
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks"
+1
1 hora

Multi-coloured panel

Simplest possible translation, as it's directed to 11-year-olds doing a maths problem.
Peer comment(s):

agree Helena Chavarria : Though I'm sure you agree that Spanish text books are often far from simple - especially maths books.
1 hora
My kids' Spanish textbooks humbled me! Especially the English ones...Thanks!
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