A Primer for Translation Buyers: Part One

Posted On August 18, 2008By TranspanishIn Translation Buyers/ No Comments

As a potential translation buyer, you have probably already decided that you need some of your materials translated into one or more foreign languages. Your company may also do business internationally so you need correspondence or business plans translated for your partners and clients abroad. This two-part article will guide you through the nuts and bolts of working with translators so that you end up with the best finished product possible.

Interpretation vs. Translation

Most laypeople use the words interpretation and translation interchangeably when in fact they are very different and practitioners of each use different skill-sets. Of course, both interpretation and translation deal with language, but the medium of the former is the spoken word and the latter the written word.

Translators work from a written document in the source language to render a document in the target language. Interpreters provide real-time translation of the spoken word, either over the phone, in large meetings or conferences, or in small-group settings.

Your company may need both translation and interpretation services, but don’t assume that your translator will be able to provide both for you. This is because of the different skill-sets each service requires. Great translators are exceptionally adept with the written word and interpreters with the spoken word. While some translators also work as interpreters, this isn’t always the case. Furthermore, you may be working remotely with a translator and in many instances, you’ll need an interpreter to work with you onsite.

For an excellent description of the differences between translation and interpretation, follow this link to a post on the Brave New World blog.

Understanding Pricing

Your translation agency or independent translator should always provide you with a price quote before beginning the project.

There are a few factors that will determine how much your translation will cost. First, the length of the document and number of words is taken into account. Translators can quote a price based on number of words/length of documents in three ways:

Number of words in source document
Number of words in final translated document (especially if the words in the source document cannot be counted, as in hard copy or scanned documents)
Number of pages in the source document

Other pricing considerations include:

The complexity or technical nature of the document (i.e. expect to pay more for a legal contract than a brochure describing services).
Value-added services such as Desktop Publishing.
Turn-around time (you will be charged a flat fee or a percentage of the base quote if you request a rush translation).

Transpanish’s next blog post will offer you tips on choosing the best translator.

Google Translation Center Announced to Online Community

Posted On August 11, 2008By TranspanishIn Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators/ No Comments

The online translation community is abuzz with the news that Google has announced the start of a Google Translation Center. The discussion revolves around two main questions: how exactly the service will work and how having an Internet giant like Google providing a platform for translation services will affect freelance translators’ business.

How Will Google’s Service Work?

Clients will be able to upload the documents they need translated and then choose from the price quotes that individual translators will provide. Translators will use Google’s web-based tools to create and review translations and the “Translator’s Workbench” will provide translators with tools such as a revision history, a glossary, or a history of previous translations. Google, at least as currently explained, will simply serve as a middleman, coordinating services and providing the platform and tools for clients and translators alike.

Throughout the preliminary discussions, one topic on which everyone still seems unclear is that of Translation Memory (refer to previous Transpanish posts for an intro to TM here and here) and how Google will implement it. It seems that Google wants to create a meta-TM through which individual translators will have access to all similar translations previously inputted into the system. This raises the question of ownership (clients usually own the rights to translations input into TM, as they’ve paid for the translations) and quality of what is uploaded into the global TM (Google states that individual translators will be solely responsible for quality control of what they produce).

How Will the Service Affect Freelance Translators?

Since Google has not yet unrolled its Beta version, professional translators can only speculate on the effect that Google Translation Center will have on their business. On the Proz Forum discussion of this topic, translators are understandably concerned about the quality of the output, especially since creating a solid, accurate TM takes time as texts are translated and fed into the system.

Google Blogoscoped offers a preliminary analysis of the service’s features and included screenshots of the tools that GTC will offer to the translator. Access to these free tools (questions about the TM aside) could be very good news for freelancers and GTC may very well open up a world of freelance gigs to professional translators. However, freelancers are concerned about whether potential clients will be willing to pay market rates for translations when looking for a translator on GTC.

Of course, the online translation community can only speculate on GTC’s effects on the translation industry until the service is actually rolled out.

To read more commentary on the service, read Brian McConnell’s blog post, “GTC: The World’s Largest Translation Memory.”

Bilingual Education in the U.S.

Posted On August 6, 2008By TranspanishIn English Language, Spanish Language/ No Comments

If your goal is to become fluent in another language, many times total immersion is the best practice. However, this is not the case for young recent immigrants in public schools because they also must become proficient in the subject matter of instruction. This is where bilingual education comes in.

Bilingual education and its alternatives have been up for political and moral debate. Its proponents posit that mastering English, literacy, and subject matter simultaneously is too overwhelming for most students and that a combination of instruction in one’s native language and in English is necessary for success. Its detractors state that bilingual education retards the mastery of English which in turn retards students’ acquisition of knowledge in all areas.

There are varying levels and approaches to bilingual education, roughly broken into the following strategies:

Transitional: the goal is to transition English language learners into English-only classrooms as quickly as possible and provides content instruction in the student’s native language while they learn English.
Two-Way or Dual Language: these programs are designed to teach both native English and non-native English speaking students to be bilingual and biliterate.
Specialized Dual Language: subjects are taught in the students’ second language with bilingual teachers who can field students’ questions when they need assistance in their native language. Literacy instruction in students’ native language is also provided separately.
Late-Exit or Developmental: Students are educated in their native language for an extended period of time, complemented by education in English.

The debate over bilingual education takes place within a larger political and social context, which may be to the detriment of students’ acquisition of knowledge of both English and material in content areas. Furthermore, while bilingual education might be effective practice in areas of the country where there are fewer native languages spoken, the system becomes unwieldy and impossible in areas where immigrants come from all over the world.

For more resources on bilingual education, both for and against, follow these links:

National Association for Bilingual Education

Twisted Tongues: The Failure of Bilingual Education

The Case Against Bilingual Education

California Association for Bilingual Education

Spanglish in the United States

Posted On July 30, 2008By TranspanishIn Spanish Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ 3 Comments

There’s language as it appears in grammar books and there’s language as it’s truly spoken every day. The way that bilingual Spanish and English speakers in the United States combine the two languages is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In every day vernacular, people use the term Spanglish to describe the mixing of the two languages. But from a linguistic perspective, the term Spanglish lumps together several different ways of using the two languages under this umbrella.

Below are brief descriptions of a few terms linguists use to describe the linguistic phenomena many understand to be hallmarks of Spanglish:

1. Code-switching: when bilinguals use elements of both languages in conversation, either between sentences or within a single sentence.
2. Loanword: a word directly taken from another language with little or no translation.
3. Language contact: borrowing vocabulary and other language features from another language.

While Spanglish is not yet considered a separate language as Haitian Creole or Cape Verdean Creole is, scholars are beginning to take its use more seriously as the number of bilingual Latinos in the U.S. grows. Many continue to distrust Spanglish because of its status of not quite English and not quite Spanish.

But Ilan Stevens, author of Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, speaks to the value of Spanglish:

“Latinos are learning English,” he says. “That doesn’t mean that they should sacrifice their original language or that they should give up this in-betweeness that is Spanglish. Spanglish is a creative way also of saying, ‘I am an American and I have my own style, my own taste, my own tongue.'”
(from: Spanglish, A New American Language : NPR)

For more online resources about Spanglish:

• Don Quixote de La Mancha: Spanglish version
• NPR interview with Ilan Stevens

Examples of Spanglish

Spanglish	Spanish	English
breaka	frenos	brakes
carpeta	alfombra	carpet
chequear	verificar	to check
glasso	vaso	glass
ganga	pandilla	gang
likear	gotear	to leak
mailear	enviar coreo	to mail
marketa	mercado	market
norsa	enfermera	nurse
puchar	empujar	to push
ruffo	techo	roof
signear	firmar	to sign

Analyzing files in Trados

Posted On July 24, 2008By TranspanishIn Tips for Translators/ No Comments

If you use Trados to translate your documents, one of the most important steps is to analyze your files. Analyzing files allows you to identify how much text can be leveraged from an existing Translation Memory (TM), or if you do not have an existing TM it allows you to analyze the source files. Example:

You have two files to translate:

a. DOCUMENT_1

b. DOCUMENT_2

You want to analyze them against the empty memory to find out the total word count and whether or not there are repetitions.
To analyze a file, select Tools, and then Analyze. Click Add and browse for the two files you want to analyze.
Once the files are located click Open to add them. (You can also drag files from Windows Explorer into the Files to analyze dialogue box.)

a. Remember if you want to analyze the files against an existing TM, you must have the applicable TM open.

Be sure to save your log file to the correct place so that you can easily access it.
Click Analyze

a. A summary of the log file appears in the dialogue box. The .txt and .csv log file have also been saved to the folder you selected for the log.

Sample of a log file:

Analyze Total (2 files):

Match Types Segments Words Percent Placeables

Context TM 0 0 0 0

Repetitions 111 561 2 3

100% 35 61 0 0

95% – 99% 0 0 0 0

85% – 94% 2 4 0 0

75% – 84% 3 31 0 0

50% – 74% 18 68 0 0

No Match 1,593 31,104 98 1

Total 1,762 31,829 100 4

Chars/Word 5.18

Chars Total 165,170

English Plus: The Antidote to English Only?

Posted On July 16, 2008By TranspanishIn English Language/ 2 Comments

Last week’s blog post focused on the English Only movement and its proponents who want to make English the nation’s official language. Their hard-line approach, which many feel attempts to negate the benefits of a multilingual society, is countered by the English Plus movement.

Those who support English Plus encourage second-language acquisition for immigrants and citizens alike. Rather than looking at those who are not native English speakers as somehow disabled linguistically, English Plus attempts to celebrate their native language ability while providing immigrants with the resources to become proficient in English.

Furthermore, English Plus encourages monolingual English speakers to acquire skills in a second language. While in certain parts of the country, American-born people are proud to have learned a second language, the country as a whole remains staunchly monolingual.

In fact, the world jokes about the prevailing attitude of Americans that forces others to learn English without reciprocation:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
American.

English Plus proposes to counteract popular opinion of monolingual American citizens as well as support newcomers’ acquisition of English as a Second Language.

But what do they seek to do on the legislative front?

• Oppose any English Only policies at the state and federal levels.
• Expand opportunities for English language learning.
• Enable newcomers to participate in civic life even if they are not yet proficient in English.
• Encourage the retention of immigrants’ native languages for the benefit of both the individual and society.
• Retain and strengthen language assistance systems, especially in the public sector.

But what are the main barriers to our moving towards a society that respects people’s rights to retain and use their native language while supporting their desire to learn English? Two things: attitudes and funding. The English Only movement boasts 170,000 members, and there are plenty more people who feel threatened by languages other than English who aren’t official members. And as the U.S. economy flounders, funding for state and federally supported English classes is being cut.

To read more about English Plus, follow the links to two resources:

English Plus Movement (founding document)
English Plus vs. English Only

English Only or Official English?

Posted On July 10, 2008By TranspanishIn English Language/ No Comments

No one can deny that immigration is one of the hottest topics in the U.S. today, especially as we are poised to elect a new president. Often those who seek to limit immigration and combat illegal immigration use language about “invasion” and stridently oppose the “press one for English, press two for Spanish” phenomenon as indicative of a trend in pandering to a population who many feel refuses to learn English. While English currently isn’t the official language in the U.S., several states have passed legislation making it their official language. Again and again, “English Only” pops up in political rhetoric at the city, state, and federal levels. But what does “English Only” truly mean? U.S. English, one of the country’s oldest proponents of English Only or Official English actually paints a much more benign picture. From their website, we find a brief description of what they propose: Declaring English the official language means that official government business at all levels must be conducted solely in English. This includes all public documents, records, legislation and regulations, as well as hearings, official ceremonies and public meetings. To read more about the details of this movement, read their FAQ section. ProEnglish (which maintains that Official English is very different from English only) posits that opponents continue to use the term English Only to capitalize on the fact that it’s a loaded term that implies Official English supporters are anti-immigrant xenophobes. While ProEnglish purports to welcome the use of different languages in the public sphere, they also strongly state that immigrants cannot assimilate without learning English. And that they, in fact, have no right to reside in the U.S. if they do not learn English. On its face, encouraging immigrants to learn English certainly doesn’t seem like a negative thing. But they propose to remove many of the public supports for first-generation immigrants, such as: court interpreters, translation of government documents and paperwork, bilingual education, and bilingual ballots. Basically, this would take away any ability for immigrants to participate in civic life if they are in the beginning stages of learning English. James Crawford, author of Hold Your Tongue offers a scathing critique of this movement to limit use of any language other than English. The three excerpts from his book offer insight into how opponents understand this movement, whatever terminology they may use.

Spanish-Language Statistics

Posted On June 30, 2008By TranspanishIn Spanish Language, Translation Buyers/ 3 Comments

If you live in the United States, you’re probably no longer surprised to overhear Spanish being spoken. But just how widespread is the Spanish language in the world today? Over 250 million people speak Spanish as their first language and if we include those who speak Spanish as their second language, the total number of Spanish speakers is over 400 million.Within the United States, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language. According to the 2006 US Census, over 34 million people primarily speak Spanish at home.

Some more facts about Spanish usage in the United States:

Over half of the country’s Spanish speakers live in California, Texas, and Florida.
19% percent of Hispanics in the U.S. speak only Spanish, 9% speak only English, 55% speak very limited English, and 17% are fully English-Spanish bilingual.
Almost all second-generation Hispanic Americans speak English and 50% speak Spanish at home.

It’s clear that over generations in the U.S., Hispanics shift from being Spanish-dominant to English-dominant, as explained in a previous blog post. But it also remains clear that as immigrants continue to arrive in the United States with little to no English-language proficiency, there remains a need in the marketplace for products and services to be marketed in Spanish.

Text Expansion in Spanish Translations

If you’ve ever listened to a Spanish-English interpreter, you may have wondered why the interpreter’s translation into English of a Spanish statement seemed so much shorter and the converse so much longer. What you’ve witnessed is contraction and expansion when translating between two languages.

The same thing occurs in written translations, and can affect how your final document appears if you don’t take text expansion into account when creating your layout. When translating from English into Spanish, the text may expand up to 20% and when working into Spanish from English, the text can contract up to 15%.

If you need a document with a fixed template or page count translated, such as a brochure or newsletter, not taking text expansion or contraction into account can make your best graphic design attempts fall apart in translation.

Here are a couple of tips to avoid large expanses of white space or overcrowding in the final translated document:

Use a larger font in English to account for text expansion into Spanish and a smaller font for Spanish to English translations.
Have a translation-friendly template ready with reduced point size and decreased space between paragraphs.
Avoid document styles such as nested lists, since what looks clean and crisp in English may look silly when translated into Spanish.

Spanish 101 or How Not to Embarrass Yourself Immediately

Posted On June 17, 2008By TranspanishIn Spanish Language/ 1 Comment

Anyone who has successfully learned a second language as an adult will tell you that it’s not easy, but the more risks you take, the more rewarding the results will be. Rather than looking at the Spanish language as a minefield of potential mistakes, look at it as a journey during which you will explore communicating in a new tongue. And your tongue and mind will certainly work overtime as you attempt to roll your r’s, formulate questions and thoughts, and understand what native speakers say.I always liken learning Spanish to child development: a baby first learns to crawl, then to stand upright, and then finally to walk. Don’t expect to be running a language marathon before you’ve even learned to roll over.

At the beginning, your attempts at communication may seem simplistic. This can be frustrating for adults who have been thinking and expressing complicated ideas in their native language for years, but it’s part of the learning process. Let’s start with a couple phrases that you might try to use that will definitely get a giggle.

You may feel self-conscious and timid when faced with a conversation with a real-live Spanish speaker and you want to let them know. Your first impulse is to share your embarrassment and nervousness so you carefully say “Estoy embarazado(a),” because you want to tell them you are embarrassed. There are several issues with this statement:

You tried to translate your English thought directly into Spanish.
You unintentionally used a false cognate, which is a word seemingly similar in English and Spanish, but actually has two very different meanings in each language.
You just told the listener that you were pregnant and not embarrassed.

What you should have said was either “Me da pena” “Me da vergüenza” (It gives me shame) or “Tengo pena” “Tengo vergüenza” (I feel shame).

When we have few words at our disposal to describe our feelings or we find ourselves making small talk with a new person, what topic do humans often resort to?

If you thought about the weather and our reaction to it, you hit upon the most common topic for idle chit-chat as well as the one with the most probability for mortification for a new Spanish-speaker.

Imagine that you’re sitting in a tropical garden with your new host family and you’re from a cold climate or that you’re sweating through a business meeting with new clients in a Latin American country close to the equator. You decide to open a dialogue about the heat, so you search your brain for a phrase to describe how you feel about the weather. Translating directly from English, you come up with “Estoy caliente.” Your companions either stare at you or hide their smiles behind their hands.

Why would they have this reaction when you simply mentioned the heat? Well, because in translating directly from English, you just told them that you were sexually aroused rather than warm. You should have said “Hace calor,” both of which express that the weather is warm and have no sexual connotations.

Also, beware of the possible sexual connotations implied in doing something as simple as ordering breakfast. You’re probably used to inquiring about whether a restaurant or your host has a particular item in stock by using the phrase “Do you have…?” Beware of using the phrase in Spanish when asking about eggs, as in “¿Tienes huevos?” or the more formal “¿Tiene usted huevos?” What you are asking the waiter or host in this direct translation is “Do you have testicles?,” since huevos is slang for testicles. You’re better off using the generic “¿Hay huevos?” if you’d like eggs.

Next week we’ll explore more common errors for Spanish language learners.

Voting en Español: The U.S. Presidential Race

Posted On June 11, 2008By TranspanishIn Spanish Language, Spanish Translation/ 1 Comment

With an estimated population of 44.3 million as of July 2006, Hispanics are the nation’s largest ethnic minority in the U.S. It’s no wonder that the three main presidential hopefuls (McCain, Obama, and Clinton until just recently) spend a lot of time and money courting this powerful demographic. The political realm is always convoluted and ever-changing, but throughout the presidential race, each contender has reached out to win over the Hispanic community in a variety of ways and to different degrees.

Each candidate has his or her webpage translated into Spanish and clicking through their online information and rhetoric shows varying levels of commitment to swaying the Hispanic vote in their favor.

Take, for instance, Obama’s Spanish language website. While all the navigational buttons are in Spanish, when you click on Temas (Issues), you are taken to a page in English. He also hasn’t updated his blog since the beginning of May.

Senator Hillary Clinton’s Spanish language website has a substantial amount of information and commentary in Spanish. But her navigational buttons are all in English and you must scroll down to the bottom to get to the Spanish information on the right sidebar.

John McCain’s website en Español has the most attractive, eye-catching layout and you can access the majority of his website in Spanish. Upon opening the website, a voice over from a former Cuban political prisoner presents support for McCain’s campaign.

Of course, the measure of a presidential candidate’s dedication to the Hispanic community can’t be solely determined by how well his or her website is translated. Each candidate has aired Spanish language TV and radio spots and both Clinton and Obama have released campaign songs in Spanish.

Follow these links for a sampling of the candidates’ multi-media Spanish outreach:

• John McCain’s first Spanish language ads.

• Barack Obama: Reggaeton campaign song; Viva Obama!; footage of a speech in Spanish.

• Hillary Rodham Clinton: song for Texas primaries; press release announcing ads, including a Spanish language one (note: has been removed from YouTube).

While each candidate purports to reaching out to the Hispanic community Obama seems to be getting the most press for his efforts. HispanicTips, which is a leading blog that compiles news of note for Latinos, is heavy on the Obama article links in their Election ’08 section. All three have web presences in Spanish, but what will really matter to the Latinos is the stance on issues of import that each takes.

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