Prescription Medication Labels and Translation: Meeting the Needs of Non-English Speakers

Posted On February 16, 2011By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 1 Comment

A bill is currently being deliberated in the California State Senate that would require pharmacies to take “the needs of patients with limited English proficiency” into consideration when labeling prescription medications. Medication errors, a leading cause of medical accidents, may be reduced when patients have improved understanding of how to take prescription drugs.

With approximately 18% of the U.S. population over the age of five speaking a language other than English (according to 2000 U.S. census figures), professional translators have a duty to aid health care providers to ensure accurate and useful translations of not only prescription drug labels, but instructional and educational materials as well.

Five main issues continually plague the accuracy of health care translations and jeopardize the health care provider’s ability to communicate effectively with the patient.

(1) Literacy and educational levels: Health care texts presented for translation are often written in a sophisticated manner that can be easily misunderstood by the target audience.

(2) Imprecise writing: Typographical errors, incorrect punctuation and/or poor word choice in the source document may lead to unintentional changes to the meaning of the original text.

(3) Inappropriate use of color: Various cultural groups assign different meanings to the same color. For example, while red signals danger to many English speakers, other cultural groups such as the Chinese view red as a symbol of luck or happiness.

(4) Representation of numbers and dates: The formatting of dates, weights and other numerical information may lead to confusion, as different language groups write this information in different ways.

(5) Cultural and religious sensitivities: The use of certain anatomical terms may be considered offensive to some cultural groups.

In order to combat these problems, it is important for translators to develop systems including style guides or glossaries, built in collaboration with various clients. In addition to factoring in style decisions, translators should also consider the level of education of the target audience, the location of the target population, formal or informal tone, idiosyncratic titles, capitalization, and translation for the web. Glossaries should be thought of as living documents that grow and change over time. They ensure the consistent use of terminology from document to document while accounting for client preferences.

Top reasons why you should target the Hispanic Community

Posted On January 30, 2011By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

– There are 48.4 million Hispanics in the US today.

– The Hispanic online population reached a record 20.3 million visitors in February 2009, representing 11 percent of the total U.S. online market.

– The projected Hispanic population of the United States on July 1, 2050 is 132.8 million.. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 30 percent of the nation’s population by that date.

– As of 2009 the U.S. Hispanic population ranked second in the world. Only Mexico (111 million) had a larger Hispanic population than the United States.

– Hispanics represent the largest middle class group in the US, and over 88 percent have a household income of $50,000.

– Hispanics spend more than 14 hours online a week.

– The cost of Spanish-language keywords is considerably lower than their English language counterparts.

Still not convinced you should translate your marketing materials to Spanish? Did you know that there are around 358,000,000 million speakers in the world?

Should American Students Learn Spanish or Chinese?

Posted On January 4, 2011By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language/ 1 Comment

With China on track to secure a position as a leading economic force in the 21^st century, schools across the United States are beginning to offer Mandarin Chinese to prepare American students to deal with the Asian powerhouse. While there’s little doubt that fluency in Chinese will provide a competitive edge in the future, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof argues that, first and foremost, American children should be studying Spanish.

He notes that the “everyday presence” of the Spanish language in the U.S. as well as the country’s increasing economic integration with Latin America makes learning Spanish an imperative. Those with Spanish skills will be able to capitalize on business opportunities in the region, which will continue to see growth in the coming years as economies in places such as Southern Europe stagnate under the weight of the enduring financial crisis. In addition, Spanish is far easier for children to learn than Chinese, and students can attain a level of proficiency in Spanish by the time they graduate from high school that would be impossible with the more complicated Mandarin.

The Spanish Language in Brazil

Posted On December 27, 2010By TranspanishIn Brazilian Market, Languages, Latinos, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

The popularity of Spanish as a foreign language continues to grow in Brazil, the only Portuguese-speaking nation on a continent dominated by Spanish. Brazil shares a border with seven Spanish-speaking countries, and it conducts a substantial amount of trade with countries where Spanish is spoken (1/4 of exports and 1/5 of imports).

A significant number of non-Brazilian Spanish speakers, estimated at about 1 million people, call the nation home, mostly as the result of immigration from surrounding countries. Sephardic Jews – who speak both Ladino and Spanish – settled in Brazil and now compose a small portion of the country’s Spanish-speaking peoples.

With an eye toward more fully integrating Brazil with its Spanish-speaking neighbors and partners in the South American trade bloc Mercosur, the Brazilian Congress passed an education bill in 2005 requiring all secondary schools to offer Spanish as a second language. This legislation spurred an increase in resources dedicated to Spanish, and the number of Brazilian students studying español has increased from one million to five million in a period of just five years. A recent agreement between Spain’s Cervantes Institute, an organization devoted to promoting the Spanish language worldwide, and the Brazilian Ministry of Education provides for the training of 26,000 Spanish teachers to manage the increased demand sparked by the 2005 bill.

Spanish in the World

Posted On December 21, 2010By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

With approximately 400 million native speakers worldwide, Spanish is currently the second most widely spoken language, just behind Mandarin Chinese and ahead of English and Hindi/Urdu. Spanish is also the second most commonly used language on the Internet, trailing English. Most linguistic studies indicate that English, Spanish and Chinese will dominate as the languages of international communication and commerce in the 21^st century.

The image of the Spanish language seems to have undergone a makeover in the last few years, resulting in its growth as a language of international communication. Many now view Spanish as a practical, useful language thanks to its demographic power. The use of the language in over 20 countries as well as its foothold in key places such as the United States provides incentive for people to learn Spanish as an investment in their professional futures, especially in the case of young people.

The Spanish language continues to grow at an astounding rate in the United States. Each year more than 1.5 million new speakers join the ranks. Brazil has also seen tremendous growth in the number of students choosing to study Spanish. The governments of countries such as Brazil, the Philippines, France and Italy have invested in high-quality Spanish language education for their citizens, recognizing the growing impact and importance of the language.

The Future of Spanish in the United States

Posted On December 12, 2010By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 4 Comments

Many scholars and researchers agree that the Spanish language’s future in the United States looks promising, though it seems highly unlikely that Spanish will unseat English as the nation’s dominant language. There are those, however, who argue that Spanish faces the possibility of diminishing influence in the United States over time, the result of a language shift seen previously in other immigrant groups.

A study commissioned by Hispanic USA, a market resource firm targeted at Latinos, estimates that by the year 2025, the tally of Spanish-speaking Latinos in the U.S. will climb to some 40 million. The study challenges the notion that the use of Spanish will decline as future generations of Latinos are born and raised in this country in the coming years. The authors of the Hispanic USA study claim that, unlike other immigrant groups, those born in the U.S. to Latino parents will continue to speak Spanish in exceptionally large numbers.

In separate but related analysis, Linguist Steve Schaufele notes: “Given the current health of the U.S. Hispanic community and the level of its emotional investment in its distinctive culture, I would say that American Spanish as one of the principal vehicles of that culture has an excellent chance of surviving indefinitely.”

In addition, the pool of new Spanish-speaking immigrants favors the continued importance of the language in the United States. Over half of the legal immigrants who arrive annually hail from Spanish-speaking countries, and the percentage is even higher for undocumented immigrants.

With the emergence of the Internet as a tool for international communication, the increasing growth and importance of the global economy, and the sheer number of Spanish speakers worldwide, there are more chances to use the language in the United States and greater economic incentives to retain and promote the use of Spanish.

However, some are not as optimistic about the future of the Spanish language in the U.S. They point to conflicting studies that reveal a failure on the part of second- and third-generation Hispanics to preserve the language, a trend which is gradually diminishing the pool of Spanish speakers. Additionally, recent studies by sociologists indicate a rapid shift to English among the children of immigrants.

Only time will tell the fate of the Spanish language in the United States, but it appears that, by most accounts, Spanish is here to stay.

The RAE Discards Some Proposed Spanish Spelling Reforms

Posted On December 1, 2010By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 1 Comment

The Real Academia Española (RAE) recently announced a number of proposed changes to spelling conventions, causing quite a stir throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Many academics and writers scoffed at the RAE’s plans to introduce these spelling reforms, which, according to some, were bound to create unnecessary confusion.

Following the academy’s recent meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, linguists approved an 800-page document describing the various newly adopted reforms. The following proposed changes – some of the most hotly debated – were discarded by the RAE’s 22 academics:

»Writers may choose whether the word “sólo” as well as demonstrative pronouns such as “éste” or “ésa” carry an accent. Previously, the RAE had suggested that the accent be eliminated.

»Respecting the fact that the names of the letters “b,” “v,” “w,” and “y” vary among different Spanish-speaking countries, the RAE dismissed the suggestion of assigning just one name to these letters. For example, the name of the letter “b” will continue as “be alta,” “be larga,” or simply “be,” while the letter “y” will retain its historic designation as “i griega” alongside the newly admitted name “ye.”

The rest of the previously announced reforms remain in effect.

Medical Terminology: Prefixes and Suffixes in English and Spanish

Posted On November 29, 2010By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

Doctors and other medical professionals communicate information about their patients using medical terminology, the language of health care. A medical term is composed of 1) a root word, 2) a prefix, a group of letters attached to the beginning of the root word, and/or 3) a suffix, a group of letters attached to the end of the root word. Since virtually all prefixes and suffixes used in English and Spanish medical terminology are derived from Latin and Greek, the two sets of terms are extremely similar in many cases. Some would argue that the complexities of medical terminology are akin to those of a foreign language, but with a bit of knowledge and understanding of prefixes and suffixes, the vocabulary of medicine is greatly simplified.

We recently added a medical terminology section to the Transpanish website that includes prefixes and suffixes in both English and Spanish. Feel free to bookmark the page as a resource!

Some of the prefixes and suffixes you will find in our page:

gynec/o
-scopy
endo-
-gram

Visit our Glossary section for Medical Glossaries.

New Spanish Spelling Reforms from the RAE

Posted On November 9, 2010By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 2 Comments

Spanish Spelling Rules Get a Makeover

Change is coming to Spanish orthographic conventions courtesy of the Real Academia Española (RAE), the organization that defines Spanish language standards. Last week, the RAE announced a number of planned changes prepared by 22 linguists from both Spain and Latin America. If all goes well, the changes to the Spanish language will be officially adopted on November 28 at the academy’s next meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The following is a summary of some of the most important changes that are about to be implemented:

»The letters “ch” and “ll” have been considered a part of the Spanish alphabet since the 19^th century, but no more. The Spanish alphabet will now consist of 27 letters.

»The names of the letters “b,” “v,” “w,” and “y” previously varied among different Spanish-speaking countries. The RAE seeks to further unify the language by assigning just one name to these different letters, e.g. the name of the letter “b” will change from “be alta” or “be larga” to simply “be.”

»The accent will be eliminated from the word “sólo” except in cases where its omission may lead to ambiguity. Previously, “sólo” was used to distinguish between the adverbial form of the word meaning “only” and the adjectival form “solo” meaning “alone.” Demonstrative pronouns such as “éste” or “ésa” will also cease to carry an accent.

»The RAE plans to eliminate “q” when it is used to represent the phoneme “k.” As such, Iraq will be written as “Irak” and quórum will become “cuórum.”

» Prefixes such as “ex” and “anti” will be joined to the word they precede. For example, ex-husband will appear as “exmarido” instead of “ex marido,” as it is currently written. Prefixes will continue to be written with a space when they precede two words, as in the case of “pro derechos humanos.”

»Words such as guión, huí, riáis, Sión o truhán will be considered monosyllabic, and therefore, will no longer be accented.

»The conjunction “o” used to be written with an accent when it appeared between two numbers (e.g. 3 ó 4) to avoid confusion with 0, but this rule will be eliminated.

Please read The RAE Discards Some Proposed Spanish Spelling Reforms for the latest changes.

When was the first Spanish Grammar Book published?

Posted On November 8, 2010By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 4 Comments

In 1492, Antonio de Nebrija published Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar book of the Spanish language. Works had previously been published on Latin usage, such as Lorenzo Valla’s De Elegantiis Latinae Linguae (1471), but Gramática was the first book to focus on the study of the rules of a Western European language besides Latin.

Digital version of Gramática de la lengua castellana.

Spanish Language