Dear Wanda, how happy I am that you are translating and that you have questions to ask! No wonder! I also think you are a doing a great job of figuring out some English translations!

Hello! I'm currently translating Heavenletter #5053 into spanish, and i've come across a few expressions i dont quite know how to translate. They are:

- will-o-the-wisp ("I can only conclude that I am a will-o-the-wisp"): i figured "fuego fatuo", but i'm not sure.

Wanda, I don't know Spanish, but it looks to me that you are right!

- bug-a-boo ("This is a bug-a-boo, this concept of Mine and thine as if We were cloven in two"): this must be "cuco" or "coco", which is something people are afraid of, but again, i'm unsure.

Regarding bugaboo, we had an answer to this once before. Charles, can you give us the answer to this one, please? I just don't know where to find it..

- willy-nilly ("I am telling you that you do have purpose, and, willy-nilly, you are fulfilling your purpose"): could something along the lines of whether you want to or not "lo quieras o no", be accurate?

will-nilly would be one way or another, either this way or that way. I think you've got it!

- hum-drum ("Even the same pasture is not hum-drum for a horse"): i figure maybe something that isnt boring or monotone "monótono"?

You are exactly right with hum drum. You are on the button!

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me :)

Wanda

Thank you so much, dear Wanda. You have done a service to all the translators and the rest of us as well.

Hi Wanda~ Glad you are here asking questions. A will-o'-the-wisp is a supposedly natural occurance in swamps that results in a moving light as if someone was walking with a torch made out of twisted straw or some such (a wisp). Very ghostly and has come to mean something that leads you on and when you try to find it, isn't there (swamp gas or methane?). The correct spelling has the apostrophe o' as a contraction of "of". "Will" is short for William, a man's name. One dictionary definition says it is "a person or thing that is elusive or allures and misleads."

We had a discussion recently about bugaboo. You can read it at http://heavenletters.org/heavenletter-5053-life-teaches-you-39400.html. Basically means "something that makes people very worried or upset" but has other meanings and you might want to read that whole discussion.

It isn't supposed to have hyphens in it but that never got changed in the original. Not a big deal but it doesn't show up in dictionaries with the hyphens. A site that many translators here find useful is http://www.thefreedictionary.com/.

Hi!!! I want to ask to the portuguese translators how can we organize ourselves to tranlate the letters, I have no ideia how to do it so i think it´s better for us to decide together... :) And to all the community i would like to ask where can i get the letters in english and where do i put them after i translate. Thank you so much everybody