Tips for Organizing Translation Files

Busy translators quickly accumulate a wealth of files that must be kept organized. Storing your translation files in a haphazard manner not only leads to frustration but can also have a negative impact on productivity. Kick off the New Year right by applying these tips to get your computer’s hard drive in order (and keep it that way!).

1. Create a specific folder for your translation files.

2. Apply a consistent method when naming files and folders, categorizing projects by agency name, dates, and/or word count.

3. Restrict the length of file names.

4. Maintain separate files for ongoing and completed projects.

5. Group similar projects together.

6. Create shortcuts instead of copies for documents that pertain to different folders.

7. Explore the possibility of storing files in the cloud.

8. Clean up files and folders on a regular basis.

Languages Create Opportunities for Understanding

While learning two or even three languages at a young age is a given for many children in other parts of the world, most American children are never exposed to a second language, let alone a third. While the United States historically has opened its arms to immigrants and their unique cultures, in recent decades, attitudes have shifted to reflect a more nationalistic stance and close-minded view toward other cultures and their languages. Simultaneously, the English language has grown in prominence, and many Americans fail to see the importance of learning another language.

In fact, as recently as 2003, a Nebraska judge ordered a Hispanic father to speak English, rather than Spanish,  to his 5-year-old daughter or face a loss of visitation rights. This case clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of bilingualism and ignorance regarding the fact that speaking two or more languages clearly enriches a child’s life. As writer Sally Thomason notes, “The child’s welfare will be unaffected, except of course that she will miss a valuable opportunity to exercise her mind and enhance her humanity by learning a second language.”[1]

With regular, casual practice, a second language is not so hard to acquire—especially at a young age. Knowledge of a language other than our mother tongue exposes us to new information and provides a deeper understanding and awareness of different cultures. We also sharpen our cognitive abilities, as learning and speaking a foreign language engages our brain’s higher-level functions.

We’re doing our children a disservice by ignoring the importance of learning a second language and appreciating other cultures. Knowing another language opens our minds and creates opportunities for understanding. Thankfully, it’s never too late for the United States to start valuing and promoting the study of foreign languages.

For further discussion of this topic, visit Post Crescent.

Facebook’s Newest Machine Translation Tool Falls Flat

Just in case you need more proof that most machine translation tools don’t quite cut the mustard, the latest attempt by social media giant Facebook to incorporate machine translation (MT) into its platform fails miserably with most languages.

In an effort to help pages connect better with their fan base—often found scattered across the globe—Facebook recently introduced machine translation, powered by Bing. With just one click, users can get an automatic translation of status updates and comments. Facebook plans to roll out this feature to all profiles (not just pages) in the near future.

There’s just one problem: most of the translations are unintelligible. Posts on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are rife with slang, and Bing’s machine translation tool simply isn’t up to task. An analysis of Bing’s performance by the site Lexiophiles shows that Bing only gets it right about 50% of the time, leaving users confused and, at worst, possibly misled by faulty translations. Interestingly, out of the ten languages tested, posts translated from Spanish to English fared worst of all, with less than 10% of the rendered text considered intelligible.

For greater accuracy, Facebook will also be implementing a feature that allows bilingual users to offer an alternative translation. If other users endorse the accuracy of the crowdsourced translation, it will take the place of Bing’s original translation the next time the “Translate” option is clicked. Page administrators will be able to manage crowdsourced translations through a “manage translations” link below the posts on pages they control.

One of the great arguments in favor of MT has always been that it can at least offer users a gist of the conversation when no other means of translation is available. It seems that, at least for now, Bing’s tool doesn’t even offer that to Facebook’s users.

Spanish in the United States: Second Language or Foreign Language?

Given the pervasive use of the Spanish language in the United States, some would argue that Spanish should no longer be considered a foreign language. With roughly 40 million people in the United States speaking Spanish, the language has permeated American society and deserves greater respect. As a highly visible and daily aspect of many Americans’ lives, Spanish has evolved into the United States’ second language rather than a foreign language.

Although English predominates within the nation’s corporate boardrooms, the halls of government and the court system, both corporate America and the government increasingly recognize the role of Spanish in the U.S. Companies now woo potential customers with Spanish language advertising and social media campaigns, the court system offers Spanish language interpreters for proceedings, and an office of the U.S. government’s General Services Administration (GSA) works to ensure the proper use of Spanish by federal agencies.

Spanish speakers in North America even have their own organization known as the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española — ANLE (North American Academy of the Spanish Language) to define Spanish language standards. Recognized as the authority regarding Spanish language use in the United States, ANLE works in conjunction with Gobierno USA, the U.S. government’s Spanish language portal, to ensure the correct usage of Spanish in all official communications by government entities. According to a member of ANLE, the federal government translates more documents into Spanish than any other minority language, highlighting its importance.

Just as Spanish speakers in other countries have their own particular idioms, the mix of cultures and “flavors” of Spanish combined with a strong influence by English has produced idioms unique to U.S. Spanish. ANLE is currently working to compile a list of these idioms for inclusion in a dictionary that captures the words and phrases unique to the Spanish spoken within the United States.

ANLE looks to standardize the usage of U.S. Spanish, which will pay off later with translations that are more faithful to the nuances found in American Spanish. It’s also important to highlight that Spanglish, an informal mix of Spanish and English, does not represent or define proper use of the Spanish language in the United States, although U.S. Spanish speakers have had a difficult time shedding this image.

A professor at the University of California at Berkeley sums up the debate about Spanish as a  foreign language versus a second language, like so: “Despite the quotidian presence of Spanish in the state of California, the voice of Spanish speaking Californians is strikingly absent from the Spanish I curriculum at UC Berkeley. …perhaps the reconceptualization of Spanish as a second language must start with students such as mine who expressed that their goals for Spanish were neither touristic nor global-economical, but immediately practical– they want to be able to communicate with individuals with whom they share a home state but not a means of communication.”[1]

 

Transpanish Announces New Discounts for Translation Buyers

Transpanish is pleased to announce a savings opportunity for translation buyers. Now through December 1, 2011, new customers ordering English to Spanish translations will receive a 15% discount on services. Plus, don’t forget that new customers purchasing Spanish to English translations qualify for a 10% discount. We’d also like to remind existing customers that Transpanish offers discounts on large volume translations and 10% off the cost of translations for non-profit organizations.

Get a free translation quote today from Transpanish and take advantage of this offer.

The Meaning of ‘Quilombo’

Argentine Spanish is strewn with words and colorful phrases from Lunfardo, a rich vocabulary born on the streets of Buenos Aires in the second half of the 19th century. Now considered a fixture of the Spanish language in Argentina (especially in and around Buenos Aires) and Uruguay, linguists cite the use of Lunfardo as a defining characteristic of the Rioplatense dialect. Add a dash of Argentine flavor to your Spanish vocabulary with the Transpanish blog’s ongoing feature highlighting some of the most frequently used terms in Lunfardo.

In Lunfardo, the word “quilombo” means a mess, scandal, uproar, disorder, or conflict. In the past, quilombo strictly referred to brothels or so-called houses of ill repute; however, as the term evolved, it began to be applied to disorganized or messy conditions or situations of conflict. Nowadays, quilombo is rarely used in its original Spanish sense of brothel/whorehouse.

It’s said that the origins of the word “quilombo” can be traced to the word “kilombo” from the African language Kimbundu. Use of the word dates to Argentina’s colonial era, when it made reference to a hideout, particularly for fugitive slaves.

Related words in Lunfardo:

noun or adj quilombero/a: troublemaker, rabble-rouser; rowdy, noisy, disorderly

noun bolonqui (the word “quilombo” with the syllables written in reverse)

verb quilombear: to cause a disturbance

Usage examples:
¡Esta habitación es un quilombo! // This room is a mess!

The word “quilombo” appears in a chant frequently sung by fans at football (soccer) games in Argentina.

Si lo tiran a [insert team or player name here] al bombo, va a haber quilombo, va a haber quilombo.

Another popular chant includes the word “quilombera”:

Vamos, vamos, Argentina,
vamos, vamos a ganar,
que esta barra quilombera
no te deja, no te deja de alentar.

 

Researching Neutral Spanish Terms and Dialect-Specific Terms

When creating advertising campaigns, website content, or other materials geared toward a diverse Hispanic audience, companies are wise to consider the use of neutral Spanish (sometimes known as international Spanish). Translators and writers employing neutral Spanish seek to produce a text that is universally understood by Spanish speakers by avoiding regionalisms and colloquial language that hint at a particular dialect.

Multinational corporations with employees spread across the globe benefit from the use of neutral Spanish when translating manuals and corporate communications, as translation costs can be contained by producing one broadly understood text rather than translating into various dialects of Spanish. The same holds true forU.S.companies employing a significant number of Hispanic workers, who most likely hail from different parts of the Spanish-speaking world.

Conversely, it’s often desirable to target the text to a specific group of Spanish speakers. For example, if a company launches a product in Latin America, consumers will identify more closely with the product and the campaign if an effort is made to tailor the copy to reflect idioms and vocabulary employed in theAmericasrather than inSpain.

Challenges Inherent to Selecting Neutral Terms

While producing a text in neutral Spanish may sound simple, the fact is that identifying neutral terms is quite challenging. The Spanish language is rich with variants, and a true neutral Spanish does not exist in the real world (think Received Pronunciation in the U.K.or Standard American English in the U.S.). As such, translators may encounter difficulties when trying to determine the appropriate term to use when the target audience is a group as diverse as U.S. Hispanics or Spanish speakers worldwide. For instance, the word “car” can be translated as carro, auto, automóvil, or coche. Which term is the most neutral (i.e. widely understood)?

It’s important to learn as much as possible about the text’s target audience before beginning the translation. If possible, try to determine which region or country most of the Hispanics in your target audience come from (e.g.Spain, the Caribbean,South America). For example, if you’re translating a text to be used in the court system of the State ofCalifornia, that state’s Latino population consists largely of Mexicans or those of Mexican descent, so you may want to favor Mexican vocabulary if you’re undecided about the best term to use.

Search Tips for Neutral Spanish Terms

The key to translating a text to neutral Spanish is selecting the vocabulary that will be most widely understood by Spanish speakers, regardless of their background.

1. Consult several dictionaries to determine all possible translations of a term. Resources such as the DRAE and Jergas de Habla Hispana are particularly useful for identifying the countries or regions where a particular term is utilized.

2. Perform a search for the term you think is the most neutral in the Spanish language version of Google (click on the option at left that says “Buscar sólo páginas en español” to ensure that any stray English language results are removed).

3. Compare search results for different terms and see which one has more hits.

Selecting Terms to Target a Specific Group of Spanish Speakers

If most of your target population come from a particular country, then search for terms in the version of Google specific to that country. For example, in the case of Argentina, search at google.com.ar. Click here for a list of all the countries with specific Google sites.

Excluding Countries from Your Search

When translating for a particular country or region, you may want to remove certain results from your search. For example, if you’re targeting Latin America, you will want to search in the Spanish language version of Google without seeing results from Spain. To remove results from a specific country, type your search term and then site:-.xx, where xx represents the country’s domain extension (.es forSpain, .ar for Argentina, etc.).

How Knowing Spanish Can Help You Learn Portuguese

Knowledge of any Romance language automatically offers learners a leg-up when they undertake the study of another language in that family; however, those with a solid base in Spanish have a particular advantage when it comes to studying Portuguese, given that the two languages share a great deal of vocabulary and similar grammar. While linguistic differences certainly exist between Spanish and Portuguese, language learners with a strong background in Spanish will find obtaining fluency in Portuguese to be a very attainable goal (and vice versa for Portuguese speakers).

Linguists have determined that Spanish shares an 89% lexical similarity (the degree to which the word sets of any two languages are similar) with Portuguese,[1] and, overall, the two languages exhibit a fair degree of mutual intelligibility, roughly 50% according to one study.[2] With such a large chunk of shared vocabulary and closely related grammars, those with Spanish fluency can read and understand a significant portion of a text written in Portuguese, although understanding the spoken word presents a greater challenge due to considerable pronunciation differences.

Spanish speakers studying Portuguese must make an effort to avoid two main mistakes. First, while the two languages do share quite a bit of vocabulary, they are also rife with false cognates (also known as false friends). False cognates can make for some rather confusing (and occasionally, entertaining!) situations. Don’t fall for them—make an effort to memorize which words are false friends. Second, avoid lapsing into portuñol, the dialect best described as a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish speakers just beginning their Portuguese studies may be tempted to use Spanish pronunciation, grammar constructions or vocabulary when their Portuguese fails them; however, it’s important to respect the differences between the two languages and keep them separate.

Check out the website Tá Falado with podcasts and lessons geared toward Spanish speakers looking to learn Brazilian Portuguese.

Examples of false friends

PortugueseSpanish
Acordar: to wake upAcordar: to remember, to agree
Ano: yearAno: anus
Apelido: nickname (Brazil)Apellido: last name
Barata: cockroachBarata: cheap
Borracha: rubber, eraserBorracha: drunk (female)
Cena: sceneCena: dinner
Esquisito: weird, oddExquisito: delicious, exquisite
Fechar: to closeFechar: to date
Oi: HiHoy: Today
Largo: wideLargo: long
Latido: barkingLatido: heartbeat
Logro: fraudLogro: success, achievement
Mala: suitcase, bagMala: bad, naughty (female)
Ninho: nestNiño: child
Osso: boneOso: bear
Polvo: octopusPolvo: dust
Saco: bagSaco: jacket
Salada: saladSalada: salty
Solo: soil, earth, floorSolo: alone, lonely
Taça: wineglassTasa: valuation, tax, rate
Tirar: take, removeTirar: to throw
Todavia: but, still, however, notwithstandingTodavia: still, yet

[1] Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_similarity#Indo-European_languages

[2] Source: http://www.sulajohn-translations.ws/files/users/e/535D6469E2612048E040A8C0AC002D4E/Mutual%20Comprehension.pdf

Hispanics Reluctant to Participate in Clinical Research Trials

According to the latest demographic information culled from the 2010 U.S. Census, the Hispanic population now constitutes roughly 16% of the nation’s inhabitants, yet Hispanics’ participation in clinical research studies ranks disproportionately low in comparison to their overall percentage of the population. Every year, some 260,000 Americans volunteer to take part in medical research studies; however, Latinos represent less than five percent of those who participate. Given that demographers expect the U.S. Latino population to triple by the year 2050, researchers must take steps to get Hispanics actively involved in clinical studies by pinpointing barriers that prevent Latinos from participating in research and developing strategies to increase this population’s access to and representation in medical research.

A diverse sample of participants is of great importance to investigators because some ethnic groups react differently to certain medications and therapeutic interventions. A lack of participation by minority groups in clinical trials leaves populations open to potential unexpected side effects. Regardless of whether ethnicity influences the effectiveness of a specific medication or treatment, clinical researchers must be sure they have thoroughly evaluated the possibility before moving on to the next phase of their research.

Why Don’t Hispanics Participate in Medical Research?

A number of reasons for Latinos’ low participation rates in clinical studies have been cited by researchers:

  • Hispanic patients and their caregivers generally have little understanding of what is involved in a clinical trial. In addition, limited information tailored specifically to the Hispanic community about clinical research studies exists.
  • Latinos are often fearful of new drugs or treatments, and they are wary of being used as guinea pigs.
  • Many Hispanic patients stated they would not take part in medical research due to psychological reasons such as depression or denial (i.e. if they don’t participate in the clinical trial, they don’t have to face their illness).
  • Many Latinos also expressed concern about the costs entailed by the treatment(s) they would receive as part of the study.

How to Increase Participation by Hispanics in Clinical Trials

Community outreach and education about clinical research trials are vital to increasing participation rates among Latinos. Ideally, physicians—who’ve already successfully established a relationship of trust with their patients—should be the ones to initially present the idea of taking part in a clinical research study. The doctor can act as a resource for Hispanic patients who tend to have limited information about this treatment option.

It’s important to translate brochures, clinical documentation and consent forms into Spanish in a culturally appropriate manner to help improve understanding among potential study participants. People will feel more comfortable if they’re offered literature in the language that feels most familiar to them. Studies show that participants also demonstrate greater willingness to participate in clinical trials if the researchers—regardless of their ethnicity—speak Spanish.

Lastly, Latinos usually demonstrate greater willingness to participate in research studies if they receive a direct health benefit (for example, free blood pressure or diabetes screenings), if they see a measurable benefit to the Hispanic community, and if they can participate in the study on weekends rather than during the workweek.

How to Type Foreign Language Characters and Accents

For translators, those studying a foreign language, or anyone living in a bilingual environment, the need to type foreign language characters or accents frequently arises. This situation poses a problem for those utilizing English language keyboards, since accent keys and other characters unique to Spanish or Portuguese, for example, are non-existent. However, it’s simple to set up additional keyboard layouts in Microsoft Windows, which allows you to switch between an English keyboard and a foreign language keyboard with just one click as you’re typing, whether in a word processing program or in your browser. This method will work with most, but not all, Windows applications.

Directions for adding keyboards in Windows 7:

  • Click Start>Control Panel>Clock, Language and Region>Change keyboards or other input methods
  • In the new window, click on the Change keyboards button. This action opens a new window called Text Services and Input Languages.
  • Click on the Add button. Scroll down to the desired keyboard and double click on the name of the language. Double click on Keyboard and place a check next to the specific language option you want. Click OK within that window. Click Apply then OK in the Text Services and Input Languages window.

You’ll find that keyboard layouts are available for a number of languages; however, it’s important to note that these layouts do not always correspond to the classic QWERTY layout used on U.S. English keyboards. Some characters—punctuation marks in particular—will not match those printed on your keys.

Once you’ve installed the additional language keyboards, holding down Alt + shift will allow you to toggle between the various languages. You can also click on the language bar icon in the system tray to switch to a different language.

If you use a limited set of special characters or accents across a number of applications, it may be worthwhile to learn some Alt key codes while maintaining the default U.S. English keyboard settings. This method involves pressing the Alt key plus a numeric code (using the number pad with Num Lock on) corresponding to an accented letter or special character. The Alt key codes work in virtually all programs. Below are some examples of codes:

ALT + 0225 = á
ALT + 0233 = é
ALT + 0237 = í
ALT + 0243 = ó
ALT + 0250 = ú
ALT + 0241 = ñ

Latin American Spanish Keyboard Layout

European Spanish Keyboard Layout

Brazilian Portuguese Keyboard