Tips for Spanish Translation Buyers

Posted On March 31, 2011By TranspanishIn Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

When securing the services of a translation agency for an English to Spanish translation, buyers should keep in mind the following points:

Text Expansion

When a document is translated from English to Spanish, the resulting translation often contains up to 20% more words than the source text. This phenomenon, known as text expansion, occurs because Spanish often requires more words than English to express the same idea. Text expansion is a particularly relevant issue for documents that must be formatted for print publication.

Informal vs. Formal Tone

The English language employs the pronoun “you” in both informal and formal situations, whereas Spanish offers a choice of pronouns (tú vs. usted) depending upon the formality of the text. Technical, medical or academic texts will likely use a formal tone (usted), while personal correspondence or marketing materials – where the idea is to foster a sense of closeness with the reader – call for more relaxed, informal language (tú). Identify the tone you’d like to transmit through your translation, and discuss your thoughts with the translation agency’s project manager.

Know Your Target Audience

Before purchasing a translation, determine the target audience for your materials. A translation for Spanish speakers in Latin America will vary significantly from one produced for European Spanish speakers. If possible, identify the exact location of your target audience. In the case of a document that’s meant to have broad appeal, neutral Spanish may be the best compromise, as it avoids regionalisms, colloquial language, and certain verb tenses and conjugations that hint at a particular dialect.

Formatting Decisions

Sometimes a translation project entails more than just translating the words on the page. In the case of presentation slides, pamphlets, websites and software, for example, the text must be formatted for either digital or print publication. Decide whether you will be responsible for formatting the finished translation or if the agency will provide that service. Most full-service translation agencies offer desktop publishing (DTP) and formatting options, but remember that you will likely incur an extra expense in addition to the translation costs.

Are you looking for a Spanish Translation Service? Visit Transpanish for a free quote.

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Google Strikes Deal to Translate European Patents

Posted On March 28, 2011By TranspanishIn English Language, Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

Last week Google announced an agreement with the European Patent Office (EPO) to translate approximately 50 million patents using the search giant’s Internet-based translation tool, Google Translate. Google and authorities at the EPO will collaborate to translate patents into 32 different languages.

Patent researchers, scientists and others will be able to conduct searches for patents in German, French and English, the patent authority’s three official languages. The EPO site’s users may then obtain an instant translation of the patent documentation into languages such as Russian, Japanese or Spanish. It’s important to note that these translations are being made available purely for research and information purposes; they are in no way meant to substitute for official patent translations done by professional translators, as mandated by law.

The EPO will grant Google access to all previously translated patents, which amount to some 1.5 million documents in addition to 50,000 new patents per year.

Officials at the patent office expect the project to be finalized by 2014.

For more information, visit EPO.org.

Also read:
The machine translation debate

Google Translate and the Struggle for Accurate Machine Translations

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Portuñol: A Blend of Spanish and Portuguese

Posted On March 18, 2011By TranspanishIn Brazilian Market, Languages, Portuguese Language, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  3 Comments

Portuñol or portunhol – a dialect based on code-switching between Spanish and Portuguese – has resulted from prolonged contact between the inhabitants of border areas. Emerging over time as a sort of lingua franca for those living in immigrant communities or in trade zones where speakers lacked fluency in the other group’s language, portuñol can be described as a hybrid mixture of Spanish and Portuguese with a smattering of influences from indigenous languages. Portuñol speakers are concentrated in the border areas between Argentina and Brazil, Paraguay and Brazil, and Uruguay and Brazil.

The most uniform and structured variation of portuñol, known as portuñol riverense or fronterizo, is spoken near the Uruguay-Brazil border, specifically in and around the area surrounding the twin cities of Rivera, Uruguay and Santana do Livramento, Brazil. Although most linguists consider portuñol riverense to be primarily a Portuguese-based dialect, other variants of portuñol retain more of a Spanish flavor.

In the past few years, a number of literary works in portuñol have been produced, largely by Uruguayan and Brazilian authors. One of the most celebrated examples of portuñol literature is a novel entitled Mar Paraguayo by Wilson Bueno. The use of portuñol has also risen on the Internet, with websites, blogs and chat rooms dedicated to the dialect.

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The Languages of Spain

Posted On March 5, 2011By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Latinos, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

The first language that springs to mind when one thinks of Spain is – not surprisingly – Castilian Spanish, the country’s official language. However, there are actually a number of other languages and dialects spoken there, a few of which have attainted co-official status in certain regions: Catalan/Valencian, Basque, Galician, and Aranese.

Here’s a brief snapshot of some of the languages spoken in Spain.

Castilian 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.

Catalan/Valencian

Catalan, a Romance language spoken in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, currently boasts some 12 million speakers. Catalan has achieved broad usage as an everyday language in these areas. The language has become the medium of instruction in a number of schools, and it’s utilized to a large extent in government administration and the media. The version of the language spoken in the Community of Valencia is known as Valencian. Though some Valencians contest that their language is separate from Catalan, the majority of linguists consider it a dialect.

Galician

Spoken by approximately three million people in the northwest corner of Spain, Galician shares many linguistic features with Portuguese. The two languages are more or less mutually intelligible, but Galician relies on Spanish orthographic conventions. In fact, scholars have been debating for some time as to whether Galician and Portuguese are actually two distinct languages or just dialects of the same language.

Basque

Linguists consider the Basque language, spoken in the north of Spain in Basque Country, a language isolate (i.e. a language with no known linguistic relationship to another language). As such, Basque shares virtually zero mutual intelligibility with Castilian Spanish and the other languages of Spain, which all belong to the Romance language family.

Aranese

Aranese – a language spoken in the Aran Valley of Catalonia in northeastern Spain – shares co-official status with Catalan in that region. Approximately 90% of those living in the Aran Valley can understand Aranese, and some 65% of inhabitants can speak the language.

Read Differences between Latin American Spanish and Castilian Spanish.

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Linguistic Features of Rioplatense (River Plate) Spanish

Posted On February 22, 2011By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 1 2 Comments

The dialect of Spanish spoken in and around Buenos Aires, Argentina is known as Rioplatense or River Plate Spanish. The dialect’s sphere of influence extends to other major cities within the River Plate region including La Plata, Santa Fe, Rosario, Paraná and Mar del Plata in Argentina, and Montevideo in Uruguay. While significant dialectical differences exist between the Spanish spoken in the various regions of Argentina, most foreigners equate “Argentine Spanish” with the Rioplatense version.

The following linguistic features set Rioplatense Spanish apart from other dialects spoken in Latin America and Spain.

Voseo. In Rioplatense Spanish, the second person singular pronoun tú is completely replaced by vos, a linguistic phenomenon known as voseo. The conjugation of the second person form in the present indicative tense and the imperative mood also changes [Example: tú hablas (you speak) becomes vos hablás, dime tu nombre (tell me your name) becomes decime tu nombre]. Click here for more information on voseo.

Rehilamiento or sheísmo. The linguistic feature known as rehilamiento or sheísmo refers to a characteristic of Rioplatense Spanish in which the sounds “ll” and “y” are pronounced as [ʃ] or [ʒ] (like the sounds in the English words mission and measure). As a result, the word pollo (chicken) is pronounced “po-sho” or “po-zho” while playa (beach) sounds like “plah-sha” or “pla-zha.”

Appearance of numerous European loanwords. The great wave of European immigration to Argentina at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century led to the incorporation of a number of loanwords from Italian, French, German and English. Traces of Italian are particularly noticeable in everyday words, e.g. morfi (food).

Unique intonation influenced by Italian. Italian also left its mark on the Rioplatense dialect in terms of speakers’ unique intonation. Many people describe the sound of Rioplatense Spanish as Spanish spoken with an Italian accent.

Aspiration of the letter “s” at the end of a syllable. The letter “s” often seems to disappear in Rioplatense Spanish [Example: the word “fresco” is pronounced “freh-ko”]. Some linguists feel that this feature of the dialect is attributable to the influence of Italian as well.

Use of Lunfardo. Rioplatense Spanish is peppered with numerous words and phrases from the colorful slang known as Lunfardo. One of the features of Lunfardo is the use of vesre, a form of wordplay that reverses the order of syllables in a word [Example: café → feca (coffee)].

Influence of indigenous languages such as Araucano, Quechua and Guaraní. The languages of the various indigenous peoples of Argentina have shaped the Spanish language in this country. Examples of indigenous words that have entered into Rioplatense Spanish are the word tambo meaning dairy farm, which comes from Quechua, and the Araucano word laucha meaning mouse.

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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.

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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?

 

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The Advantages of an Online Spanish Translation Service

Posted On January 27, 2011By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/  2 Comments

Companies with a consistently high volume of translations often resort to hiring in-house translators to meet their needs; however, retaining one or more full-time translators presents various challenges. Working closely with a trusted online Spanish translation service may be a more viable method for getting translations done in a timely manner and at a fair price.

One of the greatest advantages of working with an online Spanish translation service or agency comes from the cost benefits. Hiring a full-time, salaried translator to work in-house can be a pricey affair, particularly for a small to medium-sized company where costs must be more carefully monitored. In addition to the translator’s pay, it’s important to consider the expense of employee benefits, sick time, etc. The company must also provide access to necessary translation tools such as translation memory software and dictionaries, and the cost of licenses quickly adds up.

Some companies may have frequent translation needs but not at a level that would justify the expenses and resources required for an in-house translator. In this case, contracting with an online Spanish translation service represents an excellent approach to meeting a company’s translation demands.

An online Spanish translation service or agency retains a handpicked pool of qualified translators with professional experience and background in a number of different subject areas. While a particular in-house translator may be highly competent when it comes to technical translations, for example, what happens if a complicated legal translation needs to be performed? Working with an online translation agency gives your company access to translators with a broad range of specialties and the flexibility that an in-house employee may not be able to provide. It’s unrealistic to expect one translator to be a “superhero” and do it all.

Lastly, using in-house translators doesn’t guarantee quality translations. A significant advantage of working with a respected online Spanish translation service or agency lies in the numerous quality control measures in place to ensure an excellent final product. In-house translators can produce very high quality work, but generally, additional translators or employees are involved in the proofreading or editing process to ensure the best possible result. When the organization must rely on a team of translators or other employees to get the job done, the company is no longer saving money by having the in-house translator.

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Google Translate and the Struggle for Accurate Machine Translations

Posted On January 7, 2011By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  1 Comment

Using a pioneering approach to machine translation (MT), search behemoth Google now provides translations from 52 languages through its Google Translate service. Google has capitalized on its access to unfathomable amounts of data, largely in the form of transcripts from the proceedings at the United Nations, which have been rendered into some 23 languages by professional human translators. Google Translate trawls this invaluable source of data, along with text from the Google Books scanning project and additional Internet resources, for likely translation matches. Internet users access the tool tens of millions of times each day to translate information as they surf the web.

While Google Translate has made impressive strides in our ability to understand and communicate with the rest of the world, what do the future prospects look like for the service and other machine translation programs? According to the leader of Google’s machine translation team, Franz Och, “This technology can make the language barrier go away.” Other linguistics experts contend that MT will strengthen linguistic diversity by freeing the world from the need to focus on dominant languages such as English. Ironically, one potential consequence of the widespread use of tools like Google Translate is decreased incentive for individuals to learn English and/or become multilingual.

Though some experts claim that Google Translate’s results will better with time, researchers and computer scientists working on the project note that the system is unlikely to dramatically improve with the addition of more data. “We are now at this limit where there isn’t that much more data in the world that we can use,” notes Andreas Zollmann, a Google Translate team member, “so now it is much more important again to add on different approaches and rules-based models.”

Of course, detractors state that regardless of the technological advances made, machine translation will never learn to pick up on the cultural undertones and subtleties at play in language. Jokes, idioms and wordplay are largely lost on Google Translate, which fails to capture the “flavor” of the text. According to author Douglas Hofstadter, “There is no attempt at creating understanding, and therefore Google Translate is doomed to the same kind of failure forever.”

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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.

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