When a Bad Translation Affects Legal Rights

Posted On July 19, 2013By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

Unless you are in the legal department, you study International Law or you are a fan of American police TV series, the Miranda Rights mean nothing to you. However, if you have ever watched any chapter of Law & Order or CSI Miami and you have seen the scene in which the bad guy is being arrested, you have probably noticed that the detective or police officer always informs the detainee about his right to remain silent and to consult a lawyer. Those are the Miranda Rights.

In previous posts we have already discussed the importance it has for accused people facing a trial who do not speak the country’s language to be able to understand what they are accused of, their rights, their punishment and what is going on in the courtroom. This issue has reached the press once again as a bad Miranda translation led to overturn the conviction of an Oregon man accused of trafficking marijuana and weapons.

According to the news, the man had his Miranda rights improperly translated into Spanish. According to court documents, the detective doing the translation was a native Spanish speaker but, as it has been mentioned before, being fluent in a language does not mean that you are a good translator.

As the detective was reciting the Miranda rights to the Oregon man, he flubbed the part of the warning that states the suspect is entitled to a court-appointed lawyer. He used the Spanish version of the word “free” that means “freedom of action” (“libre”) instead of “at no cost” (“gratis”).

The Court stated that, even though the accused man was read both the English and the Spanish versions of the Miranda rights, he was not informed which one prevailed. In addition, they mentioned that the mistake meant that it was not clear whether the Government would provide him with a lawyer if he wanted to consult with one and he had no money to do so.

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How to Keep Up With a Foreign Language

Posted On July 16, 2013By TranspanishIn Languages, Tips for Translators/  No Comments

If this article has caught your attention, there are great chances that you love learning new languages and that, in fact, you can speak and write in a couple of foreign languages quite fluently. But, unless you live in a multilingual city in which you need to be constantly putting your language skills to the test, it’s really easy to lose fluency and forget vocabulary or expressions.

It is true that traveling is an excellent way of keeping up with a foreign language but it can be an expensive hobby and, besides, you can’t spend your whole life jumping from one place to the other.

Fortunately, there are many interesting and funny ways that can help you maintain (or even improve) your foreign language skills.

Pen-palling:

You may think that writing letters is old fashioned or boring, but it is a wonderful way of meeting new friends and making sure you don’t forget how to write in a language that is not your mother tongue. Besides, finding a letter amongst piles of bills and unwanted advertisements in the mailbox is really nice. Many a time, you combine writing letters to sending emails or sharing things in Facebook and other social networks and, needless to say, you can find your friend for a lifetime!

Join a Conversation Group:

Look around for groups in your area in which people with similar interests gather together to share their experiences. They are usually organized by native speakers that work as coordinators and ensure everybody in the group participates. These groups can deal with different subjects although it is more frequent to find those related to politics, literature or traveling. You can also find groups in language websites or in boards at your language school.

Take Advantage of Tech Gadgets

If you love having your tech gadgets at hand at all times, you can definitely use that love to your advantage. All of them can be set to a language of your choice so that you can practice it while checking your emails, your social sites and so on.

International Sign-Up

This is a great way of keeping up with any language you don’t want to forget. There are many pages that send you regular emails or articles in a foreign language. You can learn new words or see how an expression is used in the real world.

Enjoy the Movies

If you are a movie-guy, you can take advantage of your passion and watch movies in their original language or set the subtitles to the language you want to keep up with. If you have the chance of attending a theater play in a language that is not your mother tongue, don’t miss it! It’s an excellent way of putting your listening comprehension skills to the test while enjoying a cultural event.

Dine Out!

If you like dining out, why don’t you try to improve your gourmet tastes while improving your language skills? Eating at a German, Swedish, Italian or Japanese restaurant will probably give you the chance of interacting with native speaking waiters and guests, reading foods you don’t eat often in the menu and so on.

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Who is your Ideal Translation Client?

Posted On July 11, 2013By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators/  No Comments

If you have been in the freelance translation business for a while, there are great chances that you have dealt with different clients. Some may have been easy to work with while others have probably made you seriously consider going back to your office work. Have you met your ideal translation client so far? And, what is even a more interesting question: Is there an ideal translation client?

image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You can ask these questions to any freelance translator and you will probably receive as many answers as professionals you include in your survey. However, there are some characteristics that all ideal translation clients probably share:

The translation client that every freelance translator probably wants to work with is the one that offers you translation jobs that are within your main areas of expertise or topics that are interesting reading about.

These ideal clients also have a deep understanding of what translating a text implies. They know that being bilingual is not enough; that it takes knowing the target language in depth, and that it is not done word by word. Ideal clients know that translating a text properly is a detailed work, that implies reading the original document in order to make sure it is well understood and then finding the right words to convey the exact message that the author intended. Thus, they are confident in the translator’s job and they trust that any change done in the wording or structure of a sentence is not a translator’s tantrum but something done for the sake of the translated document.

When ideal clients offer translators a project, they know that their translation is just one of many the translator is responsible for. Therefore, they don’t expect it to be ready in unrealistic times. Instead, they expect to receive a high-quality translation. They understand that, at times, unexpected delays may occur and they are flexible enough to give the freelance translator some more time to finish the job.

An ideal translation client understands that translators need to be well paid for their job and on time. They put a lot of effort in it and need to be compensated accordingly. The ideal client is convinced that this is the only way of ensuring the quality of the translated text and that the translator trains himself in any skill he considers important or necessary and updates the software and hardware he works with.

Every translator wants to work with a client who is so pleased with the translated document that he is happy to recommend the translator or even include his name on the translation, thus acknowledging his valuable contribution.

What about you?  What is your ideal translation client? Have you had the chance of working with a client that has made you embrace your profession strongly or more passionately?  What are those little gestures that you appreciate the most from a client?

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The Meaning of the Lunfardo Word ‘Bacán’

Posted On July 9, 2013By TranspanishIn Languages, Lunfardo, Spanish Language, Tips for Translators/  No Comments

Although not much in use these days, it may still be possible to hear people in their fifties or sixties using the word bacán in their conversations, especially when referring to somebody who seems to have a good economic position.  It was a very popular term during the sixties and seventies amongst the hippies.

Alegre Bacán – Tango

What does bacán mean?

According to some language experts, a bacán is somebody who sees himself or herself as having a lot of money. It is worth noticing that a bacán is not necessarily somebody wealthy but -in most occasions- somebody who seems to be wealthy. It was first used to refer to the rich people who held administrative positions in the British-owned trains. According to a version, these administrative people, since they didn’t do any physical effort, kept their hands at their backs (backhand, in English).

This term belongs to the Argentine lunfardo and it was used not only in Buenos Aires but also in all the River Plate area.

Throughout the years, different synonyms or quasi synonyms have appeared: “jailaife”, “shusheta”, “pituco”, “cajetilla”, “bienudo”, “concheto” or “cheto” just to mention a few of them.

The English version

Some language experts believe that the word bacán derives from the English word “backhand”, which referred to the wealthy people who, as it has already been said, had administrative positions in the British-owned trains.

The Italian Version

On the other hand, some language experts are convinced that the term bacán comes from the old Genoese Latin word baccan, which meant patron, captain of a ship, pater familia (head of a Roman family).

Baco, Bacanales and “bacán”

It is also worth mentioning that some linguists firmly believe that the etymological origin of the word bacán can be found in the word bacanal. Thus, “bacán” would be an abridged version of that word. Bacán would be the man who enjoys life fully, who spends money on good clothes, good wines and good food since the bacanales were, in the Ancient Greece and Rome, parties celebrated to pay homage to the God Baco that included plenty of good food and alcoholic beverages.

 

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Should NYPD Officers Speak Spanish?

Posted On July 5, 2013By TranspanishIn Languages, Latinos, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

The NYPD seems to have some trouble with Spanish speaking people. Just a few days after nine Hispanic officers were issued memos for chatting in Spanish amongst themselves and violating the department’s unofficial English-only policy, their intolerance with Spanish speakers has made it to the press again.

image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Five Latina women in New York City filed a lawsuit last week against the New York Police Department, the City of New York, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for failing to provide Spanish interpreters during separate house calls over the past two years.

One of the complainants, who is a victim of domestic abuse, said that, despite the fact that she asked for someone who spoke Spanish when she called 911, only English-speaking police officers were sent to her house. She adds that, to make things worse, they arrested her instead of the attacker and ridiculed her just because she was not fluent in English.

The reaction of the NYPD so far is disappointing, to say the least. Even though Paul Browne, its chief spokesperson, dismissed the lawsuit alleging that the department has an efficient language service as well as the largest number of foreign-language officers in the country, who many a time act as translators or interpreters during house calls, the truth is that the force reprimands its officers for not speaking English during the working hours.

That double message is contradictory and confusing. The NYPD embraces foreign officials and encourages them to put their language knowledge to the service of troubled citizens but then fails to send them to help out in situations where they are really needed or files memos against those same cops for using their mother tongue during working hours.

It is perfectly understandable the need to ensure the use of English as the only spoken language in certain situations. For instance, when officers from different ethnic backgrounds are together, when they are discussing safety instructions or procedures or when they are looking into a case. However, in every other situation, officers should be allowed to use the language they are more comfortable with. The United States is a multicultural and multilingual country and its police force should reflect that fact.

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What is the Oxford Comma?

Posted On July 3, 2013By TranspanishIn Did you know?, English Language, Tips for Translators/  No Comments

The Oxford comma has been in the center of the debate amongst language experts for quite a long time. Is it useful? Is it necessary? Should we use it? Haven’t we got enough punctuation rules already? Can’t we just do without it? And to make things even a little bit more interesting, not everybody knows what the Oxford comma is and how it should be used.

Understanding the Oxford Comma

The Oxford comma is the comma that precedes the conjunction “and” or “or” before the final item in a list of three or more items. For instance:

“This poem is dedicated to Beth, Anna, and Rosemary.”

“This recipe takes: sugar, eggs, and flour.”

It is so called because it has traditionally been used by editors and printers at Oxford University Press although this convention is also followed by Harvard University Press. All throughout the United States, this mark is better known as the serial comma.

The Oxford comma helps to clarify the meaning intended of a sentence when it is placed before conjunctions in a series of words, especially when you are dealing with complicated lists. For instance, the use of the Oxford comma is advisable in this case:

“I would like to thank my parents, Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey.” If you omit the comma before the “and” people may think that Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey are your parents!

Besides, it matches the natural speech pattern of pausing before the last item in a series and, therefore, makes a list easier to comprehend.

When Should It Be Used?

Most editors and publishers agree on the fact that the most important thing to remember regarding the usage of this quotation mark is that you should be consistent. In other words: if you start using it, always do. Consistency is the key.

 

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Why you Should Invest in a Professional Spanish Translation

Posted On July 2, 2013By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

Is it really worth to invest in a professional Spanish translation? Wouldn’t it just be the same to ask your Mexican, Puerto Rican or Spanish friend to translate that document for you? As it has already been discussed in other posts, even though your friend may be perfectly fluent in his mother tongue, that does not make him naturally a translator. Let’s explore the reasons why investing in a professional Spanish translation is the way to go.

image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1. Communication

Whether you are trying to reach out to your Latino employees, your US Hispanic customers or the readers of a publication in Spain, communication is the key to build a good relationship and to make a good first impression. Your target audience will find it easier to trust in you and rely on you if you run the extra mile and communicate in their mother tongue and, needless to say, you will dramatically reduce the chances of misunderstandings.

2. Worldwide Spanish Language is Increasing

With 329 million native speakers, Spanish ranks as the world’s No.2 language in terms of how many people speak it as their first language. It is spoken in 44 countries, making it the fourth mostly geographically widely spoken language behind English, French and Arabic. It is also the fourth language spoken in the Internet.

3. Are you a Company with US Hispanic Employees?

If you are, then you should be well aware of the advantages of communicating in Spanish with your Hispanic employees. To begin with, it is a means of acknowledging their presence within your company and of letting them know that you care about them and respect the fact that their mother tongue is different from yours. Besides, it allows you to ensure that any important memo or piece of information is immediately understandable to them.

Needless to say, this is especially important when you are dealing with safety information or training courses in which your employees’ and your company’s safety is at stake.

Last but not least, communicating efficiently in Spanish with your Latino employees may allow you to establish stronger bonds, thus increasing their commitment to the company.

4. 52 Million Hispanics in the US

The United States has the largest Spanish-speaking community outside of Mexico. According to the last US census, the Hispanic population in the US is estimated at 52 million, which makes it the largest ethnic or race minority. Hispanics constitute 16.7% of the nation’s total population.  This impressive presence has its undeniable effect in the languages spoken in the US. Spanish is the second most used language in the country and it has more speakers than Chinese, German, Italian, French, Hawaiian and Native American languages combined. It is thought that 37 million people speak Spanish as their first or second language and that there are six million Spanish language students.

5. Global Presence

Translating to Spanish, as well as to other languages, is crucial in current times in which globalization leads business organizations to operate  worldwide. In fact, speaking your target audience’s language is an efficient way of successfully reaching prospect customers and making your products and services available to them.

6. Spanish-Speaking Internet Users

According to Internet World Stats, there were 182,379,200 Spanish-Speaking Internet users by December 2011. With this being said, if you have a corporate website, there are great chances that a Spanish web surfer will eventually stumble upon it. If your content is not professionally translated into Spanish, you may lose a valuable potential customer. Marketing experts agree on the fact that Hispanics in the US generally spend on average more time online than their Caucasian or Chinese fellows and that they are more likely to shop online. Thus, having your website translated into Spanish can definitely have a strong impact in your market share.

7. A Professional Translator Makes the Difference

If you are thinking of using a machine translation tool, think it twice. These tools -many of which can be found and used for free online- translate word by word, which makes it impossible to achieve the global meaning of a phrase or idea. That is to say, they translate the literal meaning of a word into another language, but fail to convey the subtleness and richness of a language, thus making the translated text sound unnatural, forced and rough. Languages are living creatures and only a professional translator is able to find the right words to convey the precise meaning the original author intended, making sure the whole idea is clear, understandable and precise.

8. Translations can be Affordable

Not always translations are as expensive as you may think. Some translation agencies are able to offer inexpensive rates and even translation discounts. Besides, there are always ways of lowering your translation costs.

9. Are you a Non-Profit Organization?

If you are a Nonprofit organization working for Hispanics or with Hispanics, translating your content to Spanish is of vital importance. It is the only way you can rest assured that your message will be conveyed clearly and efficiently to your target audience.

10. Are You A Health Care Provider in the US?

With an increasing Spanish-speaking population in the US, health care providers need to ensure that their hospital forms, pamphlets and documents are in Spanish. Being ill or having an ill relative in hospital is stressing, and having doctors or nurses speaking in a language patients do not master well or having to read documents in a language they are not well acquainted with only adds stress to the situation. If, as a health care provider, you make sure your staff offer translated versions of the diagnosis or treatments to Spanish-speaking patients, you are definitely helping them to cope better with their health condition.

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Queen Elizabeth I, the Translator

Posted On June 27, 2013By TranspanishIn Did you know?, English Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 1 No Comments

Rulers at present may be seen as practical, passionate, determined or powerful but few would think of them as intellectuals. Thus, it may be quite surprising to learn that Queen Elizabeth I, one of the most powerful English rulers during the Renaissance, was not only disciplined and independent but also an inward intellectual who devoted her teenage years to the translation of various religious texts that definitely shaped her “man’s mind”.

Elizabeth I was a successful Queen in times where women were not considered suitable for holding certain positions in society. And according to Janel Mueller, professor of English language and literature at the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper Professor in the College, and dean of the Division of the Humanities., much of her success can be related to the translations she did while still being a princess influenced by her stepmother Katherine Parr. Mueller even takes this a little bit further and says that her translations were key to her power.

In 1545, when she was still a teenager, she translated the first chapter of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Then she took a religious work that Katherine Parr had done in English and translated it into Latin, French and Italian and gave it as a New Year’s gift to her dad.

Mueller points out that during the early period of Elizabeth’s reign she translated some devotional literature, but shifted later to classical texts from Seneca’s tragedies as she had more experience as Queen of England.

Mueller, as well as other scholars looking into Elizabeth I’s translations, are interested in determining that these works are not only a proof of her refined schooling but also a way she found of making these texts available. Despite the fact that Elizabeth did quite literal translations and avoided using English references, it is undeniable that she was part of a culture highly interested in translation as a means of making something foreign available to the natives.

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Upcoming Translation Events in July

Posted On June 26, 2013By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators/  No Comments

July will definitely be an interesting and busy month for translators. Look at all the translation related events that will take place everywhere in the world this month!

july-2013-events

Online: Early July

Website Translation and Localization Course

Monterey Institute of International Studies, online/ Monterey, California, USA

1st

4th International Symposium for Young Researchers in Translation

Department of Translation and Interpreting, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain

1st-25th

Summer Translation Program

Department of World Languages and Literatures, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA

6th

TALLER PREPARATORIO PARA EL EXAMEN DE LA AMERICAN TRANSLATORS ASSOCIATION (ATA) (2048)

Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

11th-12th

Second Hermeneutics and Translation Studies Conference

The event is intended to discuss new areas of and new approaches to research within the field of hermeneutics and phenomenology that seem to be of relevance to translation studies.

Institut für Translation und Mehrsprachige Kommunikation, Cologne, Germany

15th-19th

International Terminology Summer School 2013

TSS is a practice-oriented one-week training course on terminology management. It is intended for practitioners, students, scientists who are looking for an introduction to terminology theory and practice.

TermNet, Cologne, Germany

17th

Proz Online Conference in Spanish: “Consejos, trucos y herramientas para profesionales de la traducción”

21st-27th

Literary Translation Summer School

The summer school will include workshops translating from Finland-Swedish and Portuguese

British Centre for Literary Translation, Norwich, UK

22nd– 2nd August

Translation Research Summer School Hong Kong

Centre for Translation, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

22nd– 25th

SDL TRADOS 2007 NIVEL INICIAL. JULIO (2038)

Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

25th

Use of Customized Corpora to Improve Translation Accuracy

Webinar by the American Translators Association

29th – 1st August

APPLIED ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND ERROR ANALYSIS FOR THE SPANISH-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TEXTS (2026)

Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Advantages of Being a Freelance Translator

Posted On June 24, 2013By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators/  No Comments

Some time ago we dealt with the everyday life of a freelance translator and made it quite clear that working from home and having to make ends meet on your own was definitely not a bed of roses. However, it does have some unbeatable and really attractive advantages.

image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Autonomy

When you work as a freelance translator, you manage your own business. In other words, you are your own boss. There will be nobody else but you to control the quality of the work you do or how well you invest your time. And what’s even best, you can forget about that terrifying boss that chased you even in your dreams expecting you to cope with impossible deadlines and workloads.

Flexibility

Other important advantage is the overall flexibility that you gain working as a freelance translator. In the first place, you can manage your working hours as you please. Since you are not stuck up with a desk job, it is up to you to decide whether you want to spend the whole night awake translating that document or if you’d rather be an early bird, finish things quickly and have the rest of the day just for you. Besides, and this is especially attractive if you are a stay-at-home-mom, it is definitely much easier to arrange your family schedule and spend quality time with your husband and children.

In the second place, you can take your work with you wherever you go and wherever you want. If the day is sunny and warm, you can easily grab your notebook and find a nice spot in the park. And if it is rainy and cold, you don’t have to leave your home in order to reach your office.

In the third place, you can manage your own work load. It is you as a freelance translator who decides how much you want to work, if you’d rather take huge and highly demanding projects or if you’d rather take small projects from different clients.  In relation to this, you also decide if you want to work while watching your favorite TV program or if you want to do it listening to the radio or to some music.

Income and Expense Control

Being a freelance translator allows you to control how much money you earn and how much money you spend. Many freelancers work really hard for a couple of months to make as much money as they can so that they can take things easier or plan a trip in other time of the year. There are many expenses you can say goodbye to as you don’t have to leave your home to work: there’s no commuting to and from the office, there are no lunches to buy, you don’t need to spend money on clothes and you save on time too!

Global Perspective

This is probably one of the most attractive advantages of being a freelance translator. Living in a global world as we are, and enjoying the benefits of the Internet, as a freelancer you can easily apply for translation jobs not only in your area but also across the world.

Networking

Even though you may miss the daily gossip at the office, taking freelance translation jobs does not mean that you work totally isolated from the rest of society. You will find yourself meeting and talking to lots of interesting people from everywhere either through forums, Skype, email, social networks and, of course, the telephone.

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