Medical Terminology: Prefixes and Suffixes in English and Spanish
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 […]
New Spanish Spelling Reforms from the RAE
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 […]
When was the first Spanish Grammar Book published?
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 […]
Differences between Spanish and Portuguese
Both Spanish and Portuguese are Indo-European languages derived from Latin, and they developed on the Iberian Peninsula during roughly the same period. Though the two languages are closely related, important differences exist between Spanish and Portuguese, which can create problems for those acquainted with one of the languages when they try to learn the other. […]
Hispanic or Latino?
The terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” are frequently tossed around by the United States government and the media. But, what exactly is the difference between these two labels? The term “Hispanic” generally refers to any descendent from a Spanish-speaking nation of Latin America, while the term “Latino” refers to any descendent from a Latin American nation […]
Castilian Spanish Versus Latin American Spanish
Castilian Spanish – so named for its roots in the region of Castile – emerged from Spain’s many regional languages and dialects to become the primary language of the nation. Castilian Spanish was later brought to the New World through the colonization efforts of the Spanish, where the language enjoyed widespread adoption throughout the Americas. […]
Spanish Language Among Top Three on Internet
Spanish has earned a place among the top three most widely used languages on the Internet. Trailing behind English and Chinese, it’s estimated that 136 million users – or roughly one third of all Spanish speakers – communicate and consume content on the web en español. Spanish speakers account for eight percent of the world’s […]
World Cup Attracts Multilingual Audiences
The FIFA World Cup – soccer’s premier sporting event – is coming to African soil for the first time in history. South Africa will play host to 32 national soccer teams and 350,000 foreign visitors during the month-long event, requiring that both linguistic and cultural barriers be bridged for the global cast of players, organizers […]
Recent Translation and Language News
Here are some of the top language-related stories from the last month: 1. The recently elected president of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, sports an animal last name. Could the warm and fuzzy appeal of her name have helped her to get elected? 2. As part of the state’s new comprehensive immigration reform, Arizona now requires […]
Concern for Trademark Infringement in Spanish
With an ever-growing number of businesses looking to cash in on the growth of the Hispanic market in the U.S., English-language trademarks have become increasingly susceptible to infringement by companies looking to take marketing shortcuts. So, what exactly constitutes trademark infringement? To qualify as infringement, the translation into Spanish must be determined to be direct […]
