El gato en el sombrero/ The Cat In The Hat

Rating:
Summary: I'm teaching my children Spanish . . .
Review: (...) The point was made that the translator could have done a better job had he used a little license to play with the words and make it read with an improved cadence and rhyme. However, I really wanted a literal translation! My kids speak English and are learning Spanish -- they know the English version well. It is helpful to have a direct translation because the kids can pick out the words they do know and fill in the rest because of the context --- this only works if the translation is exact/literal. The English version is also written on every page to help with that process of word-deciphering. For me, this was a very good choice.

Rating:
Summary: To Seuss or not?
Review: Before you buy this book -- use the "view it online option".

As the conflicting opinions point out:

1) It has neither rhyme nor rythm in Spanish (e.g., it is not a Dr. Seuss book but a literal translation.

2) If you want a faithful translation it seems to do that

My opinion: There are plenty of parallel, side by side, etc. story books and the fun of Seuss is lost.

But if you LOOK at the view it online, then you can decide if it meets your needs.


Rating:
Summary: Painful to read
Review: I must agree with several of the other reviews. This book was translated with no thought to rhyme or flow. That's part of what makes Dr. Seuss books attractive to kids. It is a joy to read the translated version of "Green eggs & ham", but the "Cat in the hat" is positively painful.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible, useless
Review: Not only does this lose all the wit and charm of the original, it's not even very good as a Spanish primer. I can't imagine a real Spanish speaker using this kind of convoluted syntax. If you're looking for a fun Spanish children's book to read, then Green Eggs and Ham is a much better choice, as well as many of the other Aida Marcuse translations. If what you want is a good vocabulary-builder transliteration, try the Spanish versions of P.D. Eastman's Books ("Corre, Perro Corre!" or "Eres tu Mi Mama?"). Anything but this.

Rating:
Summary: El gato en el sombrero/The Cat in The Hat
Review: The Spanish portion of this book doesn't rhyme. I have seen other Dr. Seuss books in Spanish that do. This one is a direct translation of the English. I think it would have been a lot more effective to stray from the English enough to make the Spanish rhyme too!

Rating:
Summary: I agree with Ms. Denise Caramagno
Review: The spanish version of this book is pathetic. We also have "Huevos verdes con jamon" (Green eggs with ham) in spanish and it is delighful to read it.

At least, in this edition you still have the english version to read.

I think this book needs a re-edition with a more accurate translation.

Rating:
Summary: I'm teaching my children Spanish . . .
Review: This book was ok but i wouldn't highly recommend it. This book used good imagination skills but would also encourage a kid to be mischevious. In the book the cat in the hat causes a big mess when the children's mother isn't home and keeps encouraging them to have fun, but in he end the cat cleans up his whole mess. An alright beginners book.

Rating:
Summary: AWFUL TRANSLATION!!!
Review: We first bought "Huevos Verdes con Jamón," an excellent translation of Green Eggs and Ham. The translator, Aida E. Marcuse, managed to play with the wording to retain the "Seussian" rhyme, rhythm, and whimsy. Based on that, we bought this bilingual edition without inspecting it first--big mistake!

I am an Anglo-American who learned Spanish as an adult, and I could have done this translation. Carlos Rivera's translation looks like he took a English-Spanish dictionary and went through the text line by line, translating each word in turn. The result is clunky, non-rhyming, and completely devoid of the charm so characteristic of Dr. Seuss's works. A child exposed to this book might come to think of Spanish as a dull, clunky language compared to the fun English text. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Spanish is much easier to rhyme than English, so this translation makes no sense whatsoever.

My suggestion to Random House: call Aida E. Marcuse and get her to do the same quality translation for "El Gato Ensombrerado" that she did for "Huevos Verdes con Jamón."

Rating:
Summary: El gato en el sombrero/The Cat in The Hat
Review: When I first bought this book in Spanish (many years ago) the translation was so awful that I wrote the publishers begging them to improve future editions. I recently saw the book again and not a word has been changed-it's still a abomination.