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  3. Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting

malviviendo

English translation: scraping a living

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
Spanish term or phrase:malviviendo
English translation:scraping a living
Entered by: Graham Allen-Rawlings

10:02 Oct 30, 2010
Spanish to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting
Spanish term or phrase: malviviendo
Not really looking for a translation, but for help with this use of sobreviviendo/malviviendo. Any suggestions on how to express it nicely in English?

Thanks.
Por el contrario, siempre nómada y sin dinero, sobreviviendo, o mas bien malviviendo de su trabajo, el sentido de la vida para él se encuentra en el exceso, en la experiencia del límite como “gasto” improductivo, en el axioma fundamental de la transgresión, que implica el momento de lo real, orgiástico y desmesurado, ese instante soberano que, según Bataille, aspira a la totalidad.
Graham Allen-Rawlings
Spain
Local time: 08:23
scraping a living
Explanation:
1 option to get the ball rolling! "surviving, or rather scraping a living..."

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 6 mins (2010-10-30 10:09:14 GMT)
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LOL - if you also considered "earning a crust" then it really is spooky!
Selected response from:

Edward Tully
Local time: 08:23
Grading comment
MAny thanks to all
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
3 +7scraping a living
Edward Tully
4Living from Hand to Mouth
Antonio Tomás Lessa do Amaral
3struggling to make a living from his painting
Robert Forstag


Discussion entries: 1





  

Answers


3 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +7
scraping a living


Explanation:
1 option to get the ball rolling! "surviving, or rather scraping a living..."

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 6 mins (2010-10-30 10:09:14 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

LOL - if you also considered "earning a crust" then it really is spooky!

Edward Tully
Local time: 08:23
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 139
Grading comment
MAny thanks to all
Notes to answerer
Asker: LOL.. I just put "surviving, or rather scraping by"... great minds!!


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  franglish: possibly "barely scraping by/scraping a living"
1 hr
  -> good idea, many thanks! ;-)
agree  Alex Lago: Yep
2 hrs
  -> thank you Alex! ;-)
agree  Isamar
2 hrs
  -> thank you! ;-)
agree  Evans (X)
3 hrs
  -> thank you Gilla! ;-)
agree  Thayenga
5 hrs
  -> thank you! ;-)
agree  Noni Gilbert Riley
5 hrs
  -> thank you! ;-)
agree  Claudia Luque Bedregal: 100% agree :) (btw, nice car in your profile picture!)
9 hrs
  -> many thanks! ;-)
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50 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
Living from Hand to Mouth


Explanation:
Hth

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/hand to mouth.h...

in poverty living from hand to mouth
in
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/from hand to mouth

http://www.proz.com/?sp=gloss/term&id=7872286
Living from hand to mouth means having absolutely meagre resources
in
http://www.blurtit.com/q797925.html

Antonio Tomás Lessa do Amaral
Native speaker of: Native in PortuguesePortuguese
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
malviviendo de su trabajo
struggling to make a living from his painting


Explanation:
In terms of fitting the concept into a natural-sounding sentence, I think that this would work nicely. If the individual in question was a painter (it sounds like this is the case--would be nice to know who he is), then "painting" [or, perhaps, "art"] is much better to translate "trabajo" here than "work."

Suerte.

Robert Forstag
United States
Local time: 02:23
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 134
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thanks Robert - It's a text about the Argentinian artist Alberto Greco.

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