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Dada esta frase en inglés:

We will have to inject some new talent in that store.

La veo traducida así:

Tendremos que inyectar nuevos talentos en esa tienda.

¿Por qué dice nuevos si está en singular en su original inglés?

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    The new talent could be several people even though grammatically singular
    – mdewey
    Commented Jan 7, 2020 at 22:03
  • ¿Dónde la ves traducida así? Sin esta información, tengo que votar a cerrar. (Si agregas esta información, cambio mi voto.) Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 16:42

2 Answers 2

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This looks like translator license. In Spanish, talento means innate skill but it can also mean "a person with talent". In the latter meaning, it's always a countable noun. The translator seems to have decided that "injecting some new talent" means "bringing in people with new talents", so he had to use the plural.

The verb inyectar sounds awful to me, actually. You don't inject people into places. The sentence could very well have been translated simply as

Tendremos que inyectar talento nuevo en esa tienda.

that is, preserving the uncountable abstract concept of "talent" as talento, or or better still, keeping it idiomatic (and cliché):

Tendremos que inyectarle una dosis de talento a esa tienda.

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    I like your answer. Another option: incorporar nuevos talentos a la tienda.
    – Gustavson
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 10:08
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    Plural or singular, yes. Incorporar is much better than inyectar.
    – pablodf76
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 10:18
  • I agree but would go farther. "New talent" means new staff, new employees or in, for example, the publishing world, new authors, new clients to represent. Thus, I'd replace your "bringing in people with new talents" with "bringing in new people." A cynic would say that fresh blood is good enough -- the new people don't need to necessarily be talented. (New people often get paid less than those who've been in the organization for a long time.) Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 16:39
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Desde el momento que usas “some” en inglés estás hablando de la posibilidad de que sean más de uno. Entonces la traducción al español si o si deberá ser en plural.

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    What about "Let's buy some milk"?
    – wimi
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 7:48
  • @wimi Half a pint, a pint, two pints...?
    – Traveller
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 8:50
  • @Traveller - I think wimi's point was that talent can be like water. We might count the bottles of water, but the water itself doesn't get counted. Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 16:45
  • Bienvenida al sitio, Cecilia. // No me convence tu argumento. Me parece que aquí "talento" es sinónimo de "personal." Se necesita nuevo personal, pues. Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 16:47
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    @aparente001 Yes, I agree - same with milk! To me (a native English speaker) if I asked a friend to ‘pick me up some milk’ I’d be referring to an uncounted amount of milk. If I wanted to be precise I’d say ‘pick me up a pint (or two pints etc) of milk’.
    – Traveller
    Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 17:13

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