Translation examples
verb
Charlie’ll give me a right telling-off…”
Charlie me va a echar una bronca de las buenas.
I’d have been here sooner, only Winifred, you know Winifred, she’s on a strike from her job and she had me down there to tell off some big (pardon).”
Habría venido antes, sólo que Winifred, ya sabes, Winifred está en huelga en su trabajo y me ha retenido allí para echar una bronca a un gran… (perdón).
I thought I must have done something wrong and was there for a telling-off, but no: they told me only that they were no longer affluent, that we would all need to make sacrifices, and that what I would be sacrificing was my bedroom, the little room at the top of the stairs.
Creí que había hecho algo mal y que me iban a echar la bronca, pero no: solamente me explicaron que no andaban muy bien de dinero, que íbamos a tener que hacer algunos sacrificios y que yo tendría que renunciar a mi dormitorio, una pequeña habitación al final de la escalera.
It had come as a shock one afternoon when she gave little Billy Temple a good telling-off for decapitating one of the vicar’s hollyhocks with his willow switch, and the boy – hot-eyed, defiant, socks rolled down – stood his ground for a moment and then, as he turned to run, shouted, ‘My Dad says you’re an old maid.’ She went home and looked at herself in the mirror: hair blown loose from her clips, plaid shirt beneath a grey windcheater, complexion whose ruddiness had finally asserted itself against decades of skin-care, and what seemed to her – though who was she to tell?
Se había percatado, conmocionada, una tarde en que dio al pequeño Billy Temple un severo rapapolvo por decapitar una de las malvarrosas del vicario con una vara de sauce, y el chico -con la mirada sulfurada, desafiante, y los calcetines caídos- le plantó cara un momento y luego, cuando se giró para echar a correr, gritó: «Mi papá dice que eres una solterona.» Al volver a casa se miró en el espejo: el pelo enmarañado, al quitar los pasadores, la blusa escocesa debajo de una chamarra gris, la tez cuyo tono rubicundo se había consolidado al cabo de decenios de cuidar la piel, y lo que a ella le pareció -¿aunque quién era ella para decirlo?- una suavidad casi lechosa en los ojos.
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