In English (at least American English), "twang" is an onomatopoeia describing the sound of a plucked or vibrating string. It also describes a characteristic of that sound (more common in, say, country music or certain types of guitars). Is there any close word in Spanish for "twang"? If not, how would you describe this concept to a Spanish speaker?
Add a comment
|
3 Answers
No equivalence, I'm afraid (I play guitar, but not electric). It seems that the word is used among electric guitar players untranslated:
http://www.guitarristas.info/foros/donde-sale-twang/6753 http://www.guitarrista.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=111&t=79492 http://www.guitarraonline.com.ar/index.php?sec=articulos/pastillas&titulo=Articulos
Playing with Google Translate I get these:
- Noun: tañido, sonido vibrante, acento
- Verb: vibrar, hacer vibrar
In sentences where it seemed the most like it was focusing on the onomatopoeic sound itself the word acento was chosen most regularly.
Obviously acento has the primary sense of "accent". It seems there may be no Spanish word that means "twang" and only "twang" but this is perfectly normal when mapping one language to another. There is tañido, which I'm not familiar with. Wiktionary suggests it is more associated with bells than strings but it may also work for you.
answered Feb 5, 2012 at 10:08
Although this alternative is not "formal" (as it is something you'd find in light-hearted books/movies/comics/comedy TV/etc), you could use "pum" (pronounced "poom" in Spanish), or even "pow".
