Is this sentence ok?

[evilsara]

Hi to everyone,

I am a Slovene student of translation and I had to do a translation from Slovene to English for one of my assignments. As my work is going to be assessed by a native speaker (American) professor, I would be really grateful if any native speaker could check a sentence for me.

I had to translate an article on some events connected to the late Pope's funeral. As I tried to translate one of the sentences, I came up with something like this:

"A day of mourning practically consists of cancelling all of the cultural, sports and entertaining events, which are planned for that day, and appropriately adjusting radio and television programmes."

I don't think this sounds English at all, but I really do not know how to better it. Any suggestions would do great. I feel particularly insecure about the "entertaining events" and the "appropriately adjusting" part of the sentence. I am also unsure that "practically" fits there at all.

Thank you,

Sara

[GiddyGad]

"A day of mourning practically consists of cancelling all of the cultural, sports and entertaining events, which are planned for that day, and appropriately adjusting radio and television programmes."[/color]

I don't think this sounds English at all, but I really do not know how to better it. Any suggestions would do great. I feel particularly insecure about the "entertaining events" and the "appropriately adjusting" part of the sentence. I am also unsure that "practically" fits there at all.

Thank you,

Sara

I'm not a native speaker, so check twice.

1. I would say:'The day of the mourning...' (if you mean 'as a rule?' then 'The day of mourning...' - because 'mourning' here is a limiting attribute);
2. 'Practically' might be changed for 'in fact/actually/eventually/as a rule/usually' but I think 'practically' is all right in the context,... isn't it?;
3. will '...and matching TV and radio programs' do?;
4. '...all of the...events...' might be changed for '...all the events planned for the day...'

[evilsara]

GiddyGad, thank you for your corrections, especially for the fourth one.
About "day of mourning": this is actually widely used, as I have checked it on google (site:.uk only) and it is constantly used on the BBC website.

Thank you once again,

Sara