PoST: Week 10, Day 1, Friday, October 31, 2008 -- Halloween

HW: For next time please choose an extract of 200 words (from the article La Ballena Mapuche) that we have not worked on in class and translate those. Provide a clean copy of the extract and be sure to indicate where it starts (e.g. starts on third printed page, paragraph 3, line 4).

We continued to work on our inclass quiz. We'll have time on Friday this week to finish it -- and if you still need more, I can provide you with some.

There were some grammar issues I'd like to talk about that merit attention. This sentence in particular seems to cause trouble:

Invadieron, entonces, sin miramientos los cotos de caza “reservados” que mantenían las compañías anglo-chilenas frente a nuestros cuatro mil kilómetros de costa, e incluso más arriba en el mapa, cuando el límite establecido internacionalmente para el mar territorial era apenas de 12 millas.

The first problem is with the clause que mantenían las compañías anglo-chilenas. In this case "las compañías anglo-chilenas" is clearly the subject of the verb "mantener" -- which means "to keep." Who kept what? The reserves (que) "kept the companies" or the the reserves that the companies kept? Think about it for a minute and you'll see that the companies kept the reserves.

The second problem is where these reserves were located: frente a nuestros cuatro mil kilómetros de costa, e incluso más arriba en el mapa. For this one you have to have some geography. Look at the map of Chile and you'll see that the country indeed does have 4000 kilometers of coast, but "e incluso más arriba en el mapa" means "and even further up on the map" -- so what is further up on the map than Chile's 4000 kilometers of coast line? Peru!

The third problem is to get to where these reserves were on the coast line: cuando el límite establecido internacionalmente para el mar territorial era apenas de 12 millas.

Do it one word at a time: when the internationally established limit for the sea territory was hardly 12 miles. Here some history comes into play: it used to be that countries only controlled the 12 miles off their coasts. So where were the reserves? Well probably people from other countries (Japanese, Soviets) did not invade the 12 mile limit -- that would have started a war. And Chile would not fish in Peru's waters. But this seems to imply that these reserves were somewhere along the coast, probably outside the 12 mile limit in international waters, but in places where these companies had come to think of as their own.

Next time: we'll do some more with the quiz, I'll collect your papers, and we'll start a new article about (what else?) WHALES!