Spanish to Kannada: not wanting to go is different from telling somebody not to go
Identify whose wish the sentence expresses
A Spanish statement about not wanting an action and an instruction forbidding it can contain similar vocabulary while assigning different roles. Before translating into Kannada, establish who has the preference and who would perform the action. A refusal to participate should not accidentally become an order addressed to somebody else.
Zydenbos’s Kannada manual distinguishes bēḍa with a thing not wanted or needed from its use after an infinitive. In the latter construction, the manual describes a prohibition addressed to a person. Its attested allige hōgabēḍa means do not go there. Selecting it merely because the source contains not want and go could change the intended message.
For an original Spanish invitation, a guest may explain that they do not want to travel that evening. That describes the guest’s preference. If the host receives a prohibition against travelling instead, the translation has changed both the speech act and the person affected. Preserve the refusal without inventing authority over the host’s plans.
A thing not needed and an action prohibited have different structures
The manual gives nanage ā pustaka bēḍa for not wanting or needing that book. It explains that bēku and bēḍa can concern an internal wish or an external requirement, with context usually clarifying which is meant. A target expression containing bēḍa therefore needs its complete construction read before it is classified as a command.
Imagine a Spanish workshop message saying that a participant does not need a printed booklet. This may simply indicate that they already have the digital version. It does not necessarily forbid anyone from bringing a booklet. Conversely, an instruction not to print a document establishes a constraint on an action rather than merely describing someone’s supplies.
Keep those distinctions through the whole exchange. If a later sentence offers a copy to another attendee, the earlier refusal should not become a blanket ban. If the source actually prohibits printing, reducing it to one person’s lack of need would weaken the instruction.
The person performing the action may not be the person who objects
For an unwanted action, Zydenbos illustrates a verbal-noun construction and explicitly discusses ambiguity about whose desire is involved. His example concerning a man coming here can mean that the man does not wish to come or that somebody else does not want him to come. Adding the person who objects can resolve that reference.
This is a useful check for a Spanish message about changing a visit. A visitor declining to come differs from a host declining the visit. Both can lead to cancellation, but they attribute the decision differently. Do not assign the objection to the visitor merely because the visitor is the person who would travel.
The RAE identifies querer with meanings of desiring or intending, alongside affection-related uses. In a practical arrangement, first establish that the relevant sense is desire, then follow its holder and the proposed actor separately.
Review the Kannada result by asking whether it states a preference, denies a need or gives a prohibition. Then identify whose preference or instruction it expresses. These checks preserve the relationship between the participants rather than treating every negative-looking form as an interchangeable equivalent of Spanish no.
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